Prometheus
by ExplosiveDevastation
Summary: All tinkers have voices in their heads, telling then to take over the world and show them all, right? Big thanks to my betas for helping me in this.
1. Breakthrough 1-1

No sane human being would walk alone through Brockton Bay streets at night. Especially not through the northern districts, where economic collapse had turned the entire district into a rotten hive of villainy, and where the Merchants had staked their claim.

So, when a tall, pencil thin girl could be seen stumbling through the dark streets of the slums at two in the morning, eyes bloodshot and hair wild, one would assume that she is either suicidal or insane.

The latter would be the correct answer.

She was lost, not that she couldn't find her way, but that rather she could not find herself. Her mind was so bogged up, like an overflowing tank. Thinking, moving, breathing, being, all sent monstrous migraines flaring in her head. More than once, she found her legs giving way beneath her, the limbs unresponsive and alien. At the corner of her watering eyes, she saw ghosts, all with piercing green eyes and all adorned with the golden trilobite sigil. Her sigil. When she looked directly at them, the headache got worse, and they started to fade.

The girl tried to walk toward them, but she could barely move. This body was alien to her, like an ill-fitting suit. Her movements were awkward, jerky, like a broken clank.

She remembered, but the memories were not all hers. She remembered great conquests, remembered glorious battles, remembered wondrous creations, and remembered dying a hundred times as a hundred different souls.

Above all, a strange desire burnt bright. She remembered a need, a desperation. She wanted a slave/plaything/lover/toy/servant/friend who would never betray her. This desire consumed her, defined her existence at the moment in time. It united the warring memories within her, and gave them a common purpose.

A construct, perhaps? Yes, of course! A construct!

With every step, she could feel the memories bleeding, blurring together. She saw flashes of herself in the crowd of ghosts around her. She was all and none of them simultaneously . They were her, figments of her shattered mind, watching, judging her with their intense green eyes. Eyes that were like hers.

She reached out to them, felt the memories, her memories, crashing and raging like a storm. It hurt to think, hurt to open herself, and let the memories flow, but she did, and found herself drowning underneath the tide.

"Well, what do we have here?"

Voices, laughter. Not hers. Not the ghosts. A cloth clamped over her mouth, a sweet scent filled her nose..

Memories of a thousand battles rose as she moved. Her hands gripped on her assailant's arm, and he suddenly found himself sprawling on the ground, choking for breath.

The girl swayed unsteadily in place, green eyes glinting with sheer malice as she sized up the pile of raw material beneath her feet. He would do nicely, but perhaps some extra would be nice. A generous margin of error is always a boon, and a little redundancy in design is standard prac...

"Bitch!" The girl turned to the voice just in time to see a cudgel heading for her skull. She tried to dodge, but only partially succeeded as pain flared in her shoulder and she was driven to the ground from the force of the blow.

That's it? That was all it took to put her down? What kind of rotten, poorly crafted body was she inhabiting?

A knee cut off her annoyance as it smashed against her nose, sending her sprawling to the asphalt.

"... for the stock."

The girl blinked rapidly, chasing the blurriness from her eyes.

"...good...not damaged...you…-dred."

Her head was ringing, everything was ringing.

"...-ing me?...two..."

She slipped her eyelids open, her pupils taking in her surrounding. She was in either a butcher shop or an operating theatre. The line wasn't that clear. It looked like a small, refurbished warehouse, with several operating tables set out in the opens. Some were occupied, mostly by still forms with gaping openings running down their torsos. Large white boxes of varying sizes were stacked neatly against the far wall, sorted and categorized, from the look of it. Out of the corner of her eyes, the girl caught glimpses of what looked to be two guardsmen, armed with clubs and knives, mostly. There were three other doctor types, two were working together to extract and store organs within white containment units. The third was busy sawing a particularly large man apart.

Ah, it seemed like she had found herself in a processing plant. How fortunate.

"One-fifty and not a penny more." A cold voice whispered from outside her limited field of view.

"I know you make ten fucking times that with each of them. She's squeaky fucking clean too." Another, this one sounded familiar, probably the one who clubbed her.

Apparently, she was being haggled over like a piece of meat. Rather undignifying, really. She was certain that she worth at least five time whatever price they had placed on her. They did not know, did not understand, that it was omnipotence itself that they had sullied with their mortal hands.

A quick look revealed a tray of surgical equipments just within reach. Her hand reached towards it, grabbing a scalpel.

"She's awake."

So, to recap, she was alone, stuck within an unfamiliar, subpar body, which she had trouble even controlling. Her weapon was a scalpel, arguably the smallest of knives. There were perhaps seven grown men in the room, all looked rather fit and armed with an assortment of bats and knives.

A grin split her face. Why, it was almost challenging.

The girl hummed a beautiful, haunting melody to herself as she considered the pile of recently acquired raw material. Yes, she could build quite the slave with these, and the dismal lack of proper tools available would be nothing more than an amusing complication for a genius of her caliber.

While she was not quite sure of the purpose behind this particular slave, she had a good mental image of its appearance. The girl was sure the functions would come to her sometime during the operation.

After all, she is a Heterodyne. She is the Heterodyne. She does not need reasons for what she does.

Her melody reached a crescendo as she took a bonesaw to the bodies littered across the floor.


	2. Breakthrough 1-2

The first thing my conscious mind registered was a metaphorical construction crew demolishing my head from within and the universe had apparently missed the memo saying disco was dead.

I was not what you would call a wild child. I didn't attend parties, I didn't drink, and hadn't woken up hungover. Being responsible came with my standing at the bottom of the social totem pole, mostly because there's no other choices. Compared to other kids in school, half of which were most likely Merchants running on cocaine or at least heavily addicted, I was tame as a rock. A particularly boring rock.

So why did I wake up with an apocalyptic headache and blank spaces where memories of last night should be?

I groaned and pushed myself off concrete floor that I had used as a bed. I blinked rapidly, dispelling the sleep from my eyes as I surveyed my surroundings.

"Oh...oh God…" I whispered, feeling bile rising in my throat as blood drained from my face.

I was in something straight out of a horror movie set or maybe somewhere the Slaughterhouse Nine had set up shop. An abandoned warehouse, refurbished into a cross between a back-alley clinic and a butcher house. There were corpses everywhere I looked. Most were sprawled on the operating tables around the room, their bodies open and conspicuously empty, few still had their limbs. More dead littered here and there on the ground, all missing at least several body parts. There was a pile of large, white boxes pushed against the far wall, some were propped opened. Red residue was the only hint of their content.

At the very center of the room was some kind of huge pile of...something. A hideous almagation of flesh and machine taking the form of an oversized pustule. Various tubes and cables ran from it, filled with liquids all shades of the rainbow. Somehow, I knew it was kludged together in a hurry, and left much to be desired. I stared at the throbbing, pulsating thing as it swayed slightly, struggling to remain upright, like some kind of oversized, semi-organic boil. If I squinted hard enough, I could just spot the hints of faces and limbs that made up the monstrosity.

Bile rose again, and this time, I couldn't keep it down.

I took a few steps toward the device, driven by morbid curiosity, when a strangled cry drew my attention. I turned and spotted the source of the sound: A man, bound and gagged on the ground. His eyes widened when they caught me approaching, and he started struggling and trying to wriggle away from me.

I frowned. I'm pretty sure a fifteen year old bean pole didn't warrant that kind of reaction.

"Hey! Hey!" I shouted, trying to get the man's attention over his frightened struggling. His head snapped toward me, and I knew I had his divided focus, most of his focus was still on getting away from me.

"Calm down, I won't hurt you." He looked downright incredulous at this, but ceased struggling nonetheless. "I'm gonna let you out, alright?"

He nodded, so fast that I feared for his head's stability.

I knelt down next to him and examined the knot restraining him. It wasn't anything too complicated, but without any sharp implement, it would take me around a minute to undo it. I sighed and started working.

Now that I was right next to him, I noticed some details about him. The man was short and heavyset, perhaps a little overweight. He was bald and white, so white that it looked like his skin was bleached. On his shoulder, the phrase "Extremely Evil Egg" was tattooed. I think Winslow had taught me plenty on this particular department. I was rescuing an E88 thug.

Skinhead or not, leaving him alone and helpless in this situation seemed like a really dick move. Still, that didn't mean I didn't entertain the thought, he was a Nazi, after all.

When the last of the binding came off, he gave me this confused, frightful look, as he climbed to his feet.

"Th-thanks, I guess…" He stammered, avoiding direct eye contact with me as he stood up and darted away from me.

"Do you know what happened?" I asked.

"I was actually hopi-FUCK!" Before I could fully process what happened, he turned tail and took flight for the exit. A horrible metallic screech filled my ears, accompanied by ripping flesh and sloshing liquid. I turned toward the sound, toward the pod, and saw that something was in the process of tearing its way out from within. Already, it had ripped holes in the boil, from which yellowish pus flowed to the ground.

I decided that the skinhead had excellent survival instinct and took off after him.

The skinhead reached the door first and frantically tugged on it, cursing up a storm when he found resistance. The ruckus seemed to galvanize whatever the hell was in the pod, and it started tearing on its prison with renewed fervor.

"Shut up and move aside." I barked and, despite probably having at least six years over me, he obeyed.

The lock wasn't too complicated, I could think of a hundred ways to improve it. I could think of a hundred way to break it too, which is more relevant right now. I just needed something small an-

There a sound like a car wreck, the skinhead had shouted something as he tackled me to the ground, just in time for me to see a goddam flying ladder had skewered the door where I just stood.

Dazed, I pushed myself of the ground and turned to where that ladder had came from. A naked woman, a six foot tall amazon of lithe muscle and feline grace, had torn herself out of the pod.

At least, I imagined she would have been quite feline and graceful if she didn't shamble and grope about like a blind, drunk, stringless puppet .

The girl, the construct, something in my mind supplied helpfully, turned toward us. Her golden eyes gleamed with hunger as she did so. Before I could fully process the situation, she leapt.

I cursed and threw myself aside just in time to avoid getting bisected by the descending construct. Judging how her hands bored right through the concrete floor, I really wanted nothing to do with any of this.

The construct turned and lunged at me like a big cat. It would have been quite effective if the big cat hadn't moved like it got three legs and tripped over them halfway through. She fell off course, and straight into a wall. Said wall suffered extensive damage in the process. She might have gotten a few scratches and possibly a bruise.

I frowned. Something was definitely wrong with her. She was uncoordinated, confused. She wasn't even in control of all her limbs half of the time. She was…

 _Unfinished. Revivification process interrupted. Multiple neural pathways have yet to form._

Yes, that would be it. Thank you, mysterious voices in my head.

Wait...

Before I could delve further into her issues, someone took hold of my shoulders and shook, snapping me out of my fugue. Right, I should focus on the more immediate problems.

"Listen! You there?" Shouted the E88 thug "You fucking made this bitch! Can you fucking shut it down?"

"Errr...?" Came my most intelligent reply.

"What do you mean 'err'? You have to get me outta here! You fucking Frankenstein'd this fucking mon-FUCK!"

He shoved me to the ground and jumped back as a trolley sailed through the air where my head had been. Clearly the violent woman liked interrupting him, but the throwing of heavy objects was getting old.

Right, escape. There was no way I was getting through the door; the flying ladder had impaled it and would need to be removed before the door would open. I could try to escape through the loading bay door at the far wall, assuming the thing even worked. However, to do that, I needed to access the control panel, which was... on a catwalk.

At least that explained the ladder.

"I'm going to take her down." I shouted.

"Oh thanks God! So you do-"

"Keep her occupied. I'll whip up something." I cut him up and rushed to the ruins of the medical cart and picked through the mess.

"What? There's no way I'm keeping the nudist..." I heard his protest, but it was so faraway, so muted. His scream of terror as the construct descended on him was drowned out by a strange humming that came from all directions.

I looked around, and saw that I was surrounded by ethereal, wispy figures. All with piercing green eyes, toothy grins that were too wide, and golden trilobites decorating their ghostly forms. Instead of fear, I only felt a strange sense of companionship and familarity at their sight.

 _They had been there all along._ I realized. Watching me. All I needed to do was to reach out to them, to accept them, and they would not fail me.

 _Help me!_ I pleaded, and the tune around me turned into ghostly whispers as each poured their particular branch of wisdom into my skull.

It was pandemonium, but it was the good kind, the fun kind. The kind of animated, friendly discussion that children have when adults leave the room.

 _Ooh, those vials looked interesting. I think we can…_

 _Antibiotic, huh? We can-_

 _Check those white boxes, you'll never know what-_

 _Maybe we should look at-_

 _Why, death ray, of-_

 _If only we had a-_

I grinned, a grin that was too wide and filled with sharp teeth. A blueprint formed in my mind, and I knew just what I needed. Most of which would be human...parts….

I think using human parts for weapons was morally wrong . Was it wrong to do that? I couldn't remember.

"Jeeeesus's baaalls!"

No time to think. Need to do something before she ate the bastard.

First, I rushed over to check the sealed organ containers. There were three lungs and two hearts that fit the criteria. Wonderful, I just needed to give them a quick chemical bath and they would be all set for the next step. Most of the required components were right within reach, too. Now if only I knew where the-

A shrill scream filled my ears, followed by breaking glass as something crashed into a nearby medical cupboard, scattering the contents inside in all directions. A small bottle of drug rolled up to my heel. I squinted to read the label.

"In the eyes! In the eyes! Acid right in your eyes! You should have been fucking blinded!"

"Oh, there it is! Perfect!"

With the organs being treated, I figuratively turned the warehouse upside down in my quest for components. Not to be confused with the construct and the E88 member, who were literally turning it upside down as they threw everything within arm's reach at each other.

I was looking for some kind of processing engine. Normally, a brain is ideal when you want to interface with (once-)living organs, but I don't have the time to work on a brain right now, I need-

"That's the third fucking baseball bat! How fuckin' strong is your head!"

Jackpot. There was a small crate packed with various electronics, mostly smart phones and portable speakers, with a single laptop. Possessions from the various victims in the room, if I had to guess.

I started taking them apart. I needed a rudimentary digital-organic control unit, which was simple enough to fashion from a chip. The laptop and three other phones were cannibalized for their circuitries and wirings, which went into slaving the organs to the control unit.

"Nonononononoonononononooooo! Goddamit glasses doesn't go there!"

The rest went into six hastily constructed trans-harmonic molecular exciters units and a suit of galvanic relays to handle the power flow. A passable capacitor was created from daisy chaining all the available batteries on hand.

"How's it going over there?" The Nazi screeched, trying to evade a storm of flying surgical trays. Huh, it would seem as though the construct was regaining its motor functionw. If this kept going, it would eventually gain enough control over its limbs to eviscerate us.

Still, the sheer gall of that thug! Science(!) sets its own pace.

Calm, Taylor. You'll show him! You'll show them all!

"It's really hard to do ballet with shit in your pants!"

Right, complex bit over. All I needed to do now was to fashion the spare wirings into a simple electro-magnet. Which, when operating under the effects of a simple electrified blivet, would create a quick and dirty magnetic bottle.

Now all I needed was a pump, and lots of tubings. Easy enough to accquire given my location. Then all that was left was to put the semi-organic death ray together before the rampaging construct could eat me for breakfast. Simple!

"Heeeelp!"

"Get down, minion!" I ordered, hefting one of the lungs, now extensively modified with various metal bits and sparking coils sticking out of it, with one hand. The other held the smart phone that was modified to be the trigger.

The skinhead threw himself to the ground. I pressed down on the big red button that used to be a phone and gave the best cackle I could manage as a lance of superheated plasma cut right through her stomach. The construct stumbled, but didn't stop.

Damn. If I did make her, then kudos to me. She certainly doesn't die easily!

"Keep shooting! The fuck are you waiting for?" The skinhead screamed, somehow having managed to crawled up next to me. He looked horrible, like he had just fought both World Wars and Vietnam and Ellisburg. I tried not to think about the stains on his trousers.

"I can't." I snapped at him, patience wearing thin. "Out of power."

"Out of…" He looked at my assembly, and let loose a stream of expletives so colorful it would make Endbringers blush. "You powered this damn thing with phone batteries? There's a fucking generator six fucking feet to your fucking left for fucking fuckfuckfuck!"

He kept going as he rushed over to the gasoline generator that I did _not_ totally miss, grabbing a spool of cable on the way over.

"The damn thing's even full, just need to hook it up, turn it on, aaaand...you should be getting power now!"

I looked down to my display and, true enough, the cannon was charging. I waited for it to reach full before blasting the construct once more, this time right through her chest. She stopped moving.

Good, glad that was over. I really felt like collapsing and fainting

I did exactly that.


	3. Breakthrough 1-3

I strode/strutted/marched/slithered/stomped/crawled/floated towards the massive brass door. My entourage of clanks/zombies/constructs/jagers/mutants/death knights followed closely behind me.

"It is time, my master/mistress." The Castle spoke.

The door creaked open on its own. The motion was slow, deliberate, dramatic. I strode forward, smoke billowed beneath my feet as I emerged from the darkness of the Castle. Above me, the dark storm cloud hung ominously, and lightning occasionally danced across the horizon, and thunder rolled in the background.

There was not a single drop of rain, for it would sully my magnificent outfit.

Bless Aeschylus Heterodyne and his Grand Theatric-izer.

Outside, the seneschal and his council stood. Behind them, the townsfolk had gathered to watch my coronation.

I tasted fear in the air, as was proper of them to feel. I also tasted adoration, obedience, respect, and joy. They were waiting for this day, and they were eager to please.

"People of Mechanicsburg," I spoke with a thousand voices, all booming and terrifying. "The Castle is mine! I am the Heterodyne!"

I paused and moved up, pushing the officials aside as I addressed the masses. This also came with the benefit of adding a dramatic pause to my introduction.

"Tremble before me!"

If I was a cut-rate, B-lister wannabe, this would be where the dramatic lightning came in. But no, I am the Heterodyne.

On the bell tower in the distance, a clank lifted its hammer and struck a massive, ancient bell.

Instead of sound, an _idea,_ a _concept_ came forth from the bell, propagated by vibration in the air.

Destruction. Carnage. Terror. Chaos.

Doom.

At my hand. Mine and no one else.

All of Mechanicsburg fell to its collective knees, stricken with existential ,unspeakable horror.

And they loved it.

I strode forward, into the crowd. They parted before me, fading into thick fog.

From this fog, came a familiar sight. Green eyed ghosts with grins too wide. They gathered around, one threw its arm around my shoulder, and said.

"Welcome to the family, sweetheart. Let's show the world your brand of madness, yeah?"

And it all faded, the ghosts and Mechanicsburg were gone, and I found myself lost in a thousands campaigns of terror.

I rode far and wide, loyal reavers at my side. There was nowhere, nowhen on Earth that was safe from my rampage. From Britain's Sunken Isles to the Jade Empire's Forbidden City, from the first Ages of Man to the End Time, they whispered our names in terror and awe. We were a force of nature, a natural disaster that could never be tamed. We dictacted the fate of nations through our action. We were the Slaughterhouse Nine. We were the Three Blasphemies. We were the Endbringers. We were...

 _Vo iz hyu?_

Who am I? I am Sirius/Vlad/Vipsania/Saturnus/Dagon/Agatha/Caesar/Alexandros/Euphrosynia/Iscariot/Occam/Faustus/Genghis…

It goes on and on and on. A thousands names ran through my mind, all mine, yet not. But in the end, there was only one that mattered.

Heterodyne.

I am the Heterodyne.

 _Vrong. Vo iz hyu?_

I…

I am…

I am Taylor Hebert.

Oh God!

And just like that, the memories were,once more, just memories. I was me again, and I was very, very scared.

 _Iz hyu family. Zey mean vell. Zey vill hep hyu. But, take care dat hyu do not 'come dem._

I cried, and cried. At some point, dream turned to reality, and I kept crying through it all.

I didn't know how long I had lain there, sobbing on a strange bed in a stranger's house. That hadn't even occurred to me until now. Where was I? What happened after last night? What happened after...everything?

I took a big breath and pushed myself off the bed. Enough moping, Taylor! You're not accomplishing anything like this.

I looked around the room, and froze. The green-eyed phantoms were there. They filled the small bedroom that I was in, ethereal, wispy. Every time I tried to look directly at one, they would slip away, joining the others at the corners of my vision.

 _Iz hyu family._

"I was, uh... wondering when you would..eh wake up."

My head snapped toward the voice, and I involuntarily took in a sharp breath.

The Empire thug. He stood there, leaning against the doorframe. A solid object amongst the sea of illusions that was sizing him up like a piece of meat.

I began to panic. If he was here, that meant I was probably held by the E88. Shit, I didn't even have a secret identity. What the fuck do they want with me? Break and torture me until I start hailing Hitler? I've read stories like this all over PHO, new parahumans pop up at the wrong place and the wrong time with interesting power. Boom, they're either dead or blackmailed into joining a gang.

Am I a parahuman? The weird ghosts whispering death ray designs supported that theory.

I was hyperventilating as I looked around the room, looking for anything that I could use to blast my way out. I knew I could. Everything was just raw material for me. I was halfway through modeling a bedpost-based proton smasher in my head when a terrified whimper drew my attention.

I turned to the thug, and saw him pressed flat against the wall, eyes filled with terror.

That's...oddly amusing.

No! Shut up, voices in my head!

"Hey…" He called out meekly. "Please uh… Please don't disintegrate me? I swear! I didn't sell you out!"

 _Hoy! Smchot guy!_

I took a deep breath and pushed the ghosts' voices to the back of my mind, calming down in the progress. The skinhead visibly relaxed and let out a deep breath.

"Where am I?"

"M-my house!" He answered. "After you collapsed last night, I panicked, I didn't know what to do. I looked around the warehouse and found some keys, there was a truck outside. I just packed as much important shit I could find inside and high-tailed us out of there. That place wasn't important, but I didn't want to take any risks by staying put."

"What did you grab?" I pressed further. I didn't know why I felt like this was important, but I should know, needed to know, must know.

"Your laser-thing, that bitch you made, the pod she was in, as much eletronics I could find, the organ crates, and…uh the bodies."

Memories flashed beyore my eyes. Memories of the doctors and the guards, trying to subdue me.

Memories of me putting them down. Memories of me cutting them up and putting them back together.

I looked down at my hands as the full weight of my actions hit me. My shoulders shook. How did it all come to this? I just wanted a friend!

"Hey, uh…You okay?" I managed to bark out a laugh at that, even through my tears,

"No, I'm defintitely not. I just _killed and mutilated seven men_! I am not 'okay'. I am… I am..."

 _I laughed as I dashed toward him, the scapel flashed as I drove it into his eye deep enough to get eye on the handle. Moving on reflexes, I extracted the tiny blade and spun, my movement slicing open the neck of a thug who fancied himself a sneaky sneak. I stomped on his wound, relishing the cry of pain that came from his ruined throat._

I don't even know what the fuck I am.

The skinhead didn't say anything. He looked around and shuffled his feet, looking like he was mustering up courage, then he approached he.

Even the fucking Neo Nazi didn't want to be near me.

It took him awhile, but he finally walked up and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"You know," he began "It's not easy for anyone; shouldn't be anyway. I don't know if this helps, but they weren't worth the air they breathed. I remember them tying me down in the corner while they cut people apart and packed the pieces in crates for sale like someone dissasembling old cars. I was next in line, and you...saved me."

He stopped and let the silence consume the moment while I sat there, wallowing.

"What would you know?" I sounded hollow. More bratty and bull-headed than anything else.

He sighed and looked away from me. A sad smile tugged at his lips.

"I'm a Nazi, kid. You'd be scraping the bottom to find scums lower than me."

Geez, thanks for the reminder. I was hoping I'd saved a decent human being.

"I'll fix up some breakfast in bed for you. Look like you need I'll drive you home. No bus 'round these part of town, unfortunately."

I nodded, and he left, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the ghosts.

 _Zey mean vell. Zey vill hep hyu._

Help me, huh?

I reached out to them, subconsciously humming a strange tune to myself. My mind brushed with theirs, and…

 _I rode far and wide, loyal reavers at my side. There was nowhere, no when to hi-_

I physically recoiled and cut the link. No, that wasn't me. Taylor Hebert was not a blood-stained warlord. Taylor Hebert was not a living nightmare. Taylor Hebert was not an insane Messiah of madmen and monsters.

I was just a scared 15 year old girl!

The ghosts were silent. They merely hovered there, watching me watch them.

Some time later, the skinhead returned, carrying my breakfast in bed. Stir-fried noodle with poached egg and orange juice. The smell alone made my mouth water as I remembered that I hadn't eaten since yesterday's breakfast. I poked the noodles, half-hearedly putting up a show of hesitation, before wolfing everything down. The skinhead watched on, undoubted very amused at my table manners. Let him laugh, I'll show him once my stomach was not in the midst of a revolution.

We continued like that for awhile, me eating and the skinhead watched awkwardly. At some point, he opened a window and poked his head out, lighting a cigarette.

"You know, uh..." I started, trying to break the ice after downing the glass of juice "You're not that bad of a guy, how come you're with the E88?"

He didn't answer, just turned to looked at me weirdly, like I'd just asked why the apple fell from the tree.

"Heh" He snorted, smoke spewing from his nostrils. "Back in 1940s, not all the guys with swastika on their helms loved the ideas of putting babies in ovens. Hell, half of them probably didn't know what Nationalsozialismus actually means."

I blinked, that was...oddly deep, coming from someone who I didn't expect to have enough brain to pay attention during sixth grade biology.

"Then...but why join?"

He shrugged, and took another drag,

"Impressed them, I guess. I cornered a black guy, beat him to a pulp, shoved him in the dumpster and let the trash compactor handle the rest. Personal vendetta, you see, he hurt my sister. He may as well be a fuckin' rainbow for all I cared.

"Empire thugs thought I was one of them, gave me a sweet deal: they'll sweep the whole trash compactor thing under the carpet, they'll give me protection, they'll even set me up with a sweet pay check. All I had to do was help them. All of my problems would disappear, and I just had to renounce two-thirds of humanity.

"I took it, 'course. I didn't buy the Aryans speech. But I didn't want to get into trouble, didn't want to die. E88 offered safety, even medical benefits, and all I had to do was to help then on their little game of genocide."

He stopped and took a drag on his cigarette. I didn't add anything to fill in the silence. What was I supposed to say? I didn't even know why he told me this.

"Heh, sorry for the pity party. Meet me outside once you feel like it, kid." with that, he extinguished the cigarette, and made for the door.

"Wait!" I called to him. "What's your name?"

That wierd look again.

"Benjamin Aronowicz. You?"

"T-Taylor. Taylor Hebert." He blinked, before shrugging and left.

Benjamin's place was, apparently, a junkyard. Not a huge one, but still big enough for me to salivate over the piles of scrapped vehicles. The very sight was enough to call the ghosts and their whispers back.

 _O-oh dear! Is it Chrismas?_

 _Nae! Tis hardly propere o' thou, maketh-ing a faire maide so exitede 'pon ye firste meetinge!_

 _Vhot?_

 _There will be so much SCIENCE!_

"You okay?" The skinhe-Benjamin, asked, noticing that I had frozen in my tracks.

"I...uh...I'm fine, I guess. Just overwhelmed."

He nodded.

"I'm not surprised. You know your classification, Tinker?"

Yeah, I was supposed to be a parahuman now. Normally, I would be gushing all over this; I've always had a bit of an obsession with superheroes.

I should have listened when they warned about wishes coming true.

"People like Hero, Armmaster and Dragon." I answered. "They build things. Impossible machines, technologies centuries ahead of what's possible."

"Yep. And they all look like they're about to jizz themselves the first time they entered a scrapyard. Oh, and I guess PHO didn't tell you this, but Tinkers are catnip for the gangs. You let them know you're one, there will be enough sticks and carrots to solve world hunger and the energy crisis. Trust me, my job is to keep an eye out for people like you. Take notes of your behaviors and shopping lists. If you look like a Tinker, I report you to Kaiser for a lump sum."

I flinched. Right, I only had his words that nazi won't come out of nowhere and stuff me in a locker for creative brainwashing. Apparently, he had noticed my distress.

"Don't worry. I won't sell you to Kaiser." Which, coming from a someone who willfully worked for nazis to protect his own hide, wasn't very reassuring.

"May I know why?" I probed.

"Cause something tells me you'll do horrible things to me if I do."

 _Verra smotch guy!_

 _No fair! It took me years to find one as smart!_

The sad part is, I couldn't be certain that he was wrong.

"Anyway," He continued before the silence could set in "The truck with your stuff is parked in the back.I put dry ice over the...squishy bits. They won't spoil for awhile. I made sure the boys who worked here won't take a peak."

That's...very convenient, actually. I won't have to worry about those for a while, at least. Right now, I just wish they would stop existing, that'd be nice.

"Why do you even have a large quantity of dry ice lying around anyway?"

"Nazi, and my works go a little beyond just keeping an eye out for unusual purchases." He answered, avoiding my eyes.

Right, he kept reminding me that.

"...Do you...want to look at them? Some tinkers get their steam off that way."

I shook my head vigorusly.

"I just want to go home, please." Knowing that last night wasn't a horrible dream was bad enough. I didn't want to look at anything related to it if possible. I just wanted to lie down on my own bed and just process all of this.

"As you wish. Stay here, I'll get the car." He said, walking off and left me alone with my thoughts… and the ghosts. I forgot about the ghosts.

How does one even forget the army of creepy grinning ghosts that follows them around?

I watched as they drifted around the junkyard, staring at the scrap piles around and chatting animously amongst themselves. They looked extremely excited, but, at the same time, annoyed, perhaps? Maybe indignant?

I was so engrossed in watching them that I didn't even notice the pick-up truck stopping right next to me until Benjamin got out and snapped me out of it. I climbed in, mouthed the address, and fell silent as we drove off.

The journey was pleasant, peaceful, and gave me time to slowly digest the mess that my life had become over the course of less than 24 hours. If anything, the travel time was too short, and I found myself standing on the front porch of my house way before I was ready.

"So, uh, what's the plan?" He asked.

I shook my head sadly. I didn't even have the barest hint of a plan. After awhile of waiting for an answer that didn't come, Ben continued.

"To be frank, I would suggest full honesty with your family. I got enough personal experience. One point or another, you and your family'll stop talking with each other, everyone choking on their own personal miseries, and suddenly you're a parahuman warlord. What's your parents like?"

I bit my lips, trying to find a way to dodge that before giving up.

"My mom's...dead. My dad takes care of me, but he's…" I trailed off, not sure of what to say. Obsessed? Unable to let go? Had forgotten me?

He looked really uncomfortable now, shuffling in place and glancing around.

"Say, kid, your dad doesn't happen to be one Danny Hebert, right?"

Wait.

"How did you know that?"

Before he could answer, the door opened, and I froze.

My dad was there. He looked horrible, like he hadn't slept at all. His clothes stank, and I recognized it as the outfit from the night before everything happened. Even what little hair he had left on his balding head was a mess.

"T-Taylor!?"

I watched as his face went through a whole gamut of emotion. Shock, relief, happiness, fear. Then, his eyes caught Ben, and he settled on apocalyptic rage.

"Oh, fuck me with a rockbreaker!" Someone said. I think it was Benjamin, but the voice was nine octaves too high.

Before I could react, my dad had slammed Ben into the wall and lifted him up by the scruff of his neck,

"Tempting. You have five seconds to explain."


	4. Breakthrough 1-4

I'd read stories of normal humans who, when came under great duress, suddenly gained brute-like strength that simply came from over-charging their own bodies; hysterical strength, they'd called it. Most of these stories were considered myths and legends, of course. But,after seeing my stick man of a father bodily lifted Benjamin, who most likely half again as heavy as he is, one foot off the ground by his neck, I could conclude that there were merit to them.

"JesusChristDannyyourdaughtersaparahumanshesavedmyasspleasedontgutme!" He bursted that out well under Dad's imposed time limit. Very admirable.

Dad let out a sound that shouldn't be producible by human throats and let go of the ganger. He looked marginally less likely to dismember Ben, but I knew better.

People compared Dad's rage to a volcano. Rare, but apocalyptic. Just like a volcano, the spectacular eruption isn't the greatest killer, but the cloud of scalding ash that followed.

"Come in, and explain." Dad said. He was seething, and that was a good sign to tread lightly.

Judging from the way Benjamin gulped and frantically searched for an escape, he was aware of the danger. Before he could consider bolting, I sent a glare his way and shoved him inside the house.

"There is a lot of explaining to do, indeed." I slammed the door shut behind us with a little more force than strictly necessary.

Dad was on the couch in the living room, waiting for us. I took the opposite seat, and signalled for Benjamin to sit. He refused, instead settled for standing on the near the door.

Where was the TV, I wondered. We had a TV in the living room.

For a while, we just sat there. Each of us had something to say and questions to ask, but no one wanted to start. Me and dad were just...staring at each other. Benjamin was doing a good statue impression.

It suddenly struck me that we hadn't ever _really_ talked to each other. Not since mom died and Emma turned on me. Sure, we did trade comments and smalltalk, but that was like when you talk to strangers, or your reflection, it didn't really mean anything. It wasn't communication. We just...existed together, vaguely aware of the others' existence, but we never really acknowledge it.

Jesus, since when did everything go so wrong?

"T-Taylor, please! Tell me, what happened?"

I sighed. It looked like there's no way to get out of this.

I took a deep breath, and recounted everything that had happened. I started with what happened after Nature Camp, when Emma turned on me. I told him about Sophia, the resident psycho, and Madison, the sycophant, and the bullying campaign that they had waged against me for the past year and half.

I told him about all the trouble they'd went through to make my life miserable. I told him about the constant emails, the ruined homeworks and smashed projects. The daily hunts that forced me to eat lunches every day either in the toilet or while on the run. I told him about Mom's flute, and how it was most likely at the bottom of the Bay.

All thing considered, he took it surprisingly well. I definitely heard teeth grinding, and was sure that we needed to get the arms of his chair fixed, but all in all, surprisingly well. Still, I wasn't sure how he would handle the next part that was coming.

It'd started normal enough, just me evading the trio's daily hunting. Unlike usual, this time, I was cornered by Sophia, who knocked me out with an elbow to the temple. I didn't know what happened after that. All I knew was that I was deep in some kind of trance, my body moving on autopilot as it took off in a random direction deep into Merchant territory with only minimum conscious input on my part.

I paused, steeling myself, before telling him everything I could remember through the thick haze that had clouded my mind. While I would had prefer the event of last night be buried deep somewhere and forgotten about, I still remembered enough to be horrified.

At some point, I cracked again and went silent. Of all the thing that had happened, nothing could have terrified me more than the how and why I had killed those men.

I massacred them like cattle. Armed or not, they were hilariously helpless against me. What made it worse was that those men were just raw materials to me. Killing them was just work, albeit fun work. The fact that they were monstrous themselves was just a happy coincidence. I wouldn't have care any less if they were innocents.

And it was me. All me. Sure, it was a twisted version of me, with skewed priorities and a broken mind, but just knowing that I had that in me was terrifying.

At some point, my dad had sat down next to me and awkwardly draped an arm around my shoulders. This time, I pressed close to him, finding small comfort in the act.

"I really screwed up, huh, kiddo?"

"D-dad?"

He shook his head sadly, and made a shushing motion.

"Don't interrupt." He had always hated that. But, this time, there was no fire behind those words. It was like he was chastising to find a gleam of normalcy in a world gone mad.

"Ever since...ever since your mother died, the family fell apart. I couldn't get her out of my mind, and I guess that left you to pick up the pieces on your own. It took this happening for me to finally realize you need me."

"Dad...it's not your fault." I didn't know if I truly believed that or not. I guess a part of me had always blamed him for costing me another parent that day.

Dad shook his head sadly.

"You're a terrible liar, Taylor." I didn't say anything, instead letting him pulled me in closer and enjoyed the feeling of my dad next to me.

I didn't realized how much I missed this.

"Winslow called." He continued, producing a folder and threw it on the table. I hesitantly opened it, and suddenly was in mood for a good death ray.

Inside was pictures of me, passed out in the toilet with a bottle of pill on the ground and an empty syringe in hand, hair and clothes dishevelled. It was the perfect image of a druggie schoolgirl.

So this was their plan then? Crude, unimaginative. I'll show them how it's done. They'll rue the day they'd crossed me.

"I didn't buy it." Dad's voice snapped me out of my fantasy. "I know you're a good girl, Taylor. But something was wrong, and I was desperate to know what. I looked for a clue, anything, and I found your... journal."

I felt my heart sunk a little a that. The journal, which contained all evidences I could gather of my personal hell. The names of my tormentors. Printout of the emails. Pictures of all the bruises, ruined clothes, and destroyed projects. Transcripts of their insults, written down from memories. Every single piece of evidence I could find, I put in the journal. I didn't know why I had bothered. It wasn't like I had held onto the hope hope that anyone would care.

So that's why he was so calm! And that's also probably what happened to the TV.

"They've suspended you. If I have my way, you will never have to set foot inside that hellhole again. I'll get you a transfer to Arcadia, or Immaculata. I can move to the vicinity of other schools. Hell, I'll get you homeschooled! I'll…"

I hugged him, cutting off his train of thoughts. He went silent, and I had no reason to break the peace.

We sat there for a while, enjoying something we didn't know we'd lost. It took awhile before dad found his voice again.

"Don't worry, Taylor. We'll fix this together. I know you're not some kind of psychopathic murderer. We'll find a way."

I nodded, still a little dazed from everything.

"It's just… not how I imagine being a cape would like. I'd dreamt of waking up with powers and being swept away from Winslow and into a better life, not...this."

Dad ruffled my hair, chuckling to himself. I found myself joining in awkwardly.

"So, how does it work?"

"I think I'm a tinker. I..built stuff, but it's really weird, there's all these voices and... That's about the extent of what I could say about my power. I think Benjamin may know more."

We both turned to the mind in question and found him leaning against the wall, looking like he was trying his best to blend in with it. He flinched and mouthed a curse under his breath when we turned our attention to him.

There was a brief moment of awkwardness when we waited for him to speak up and him looking like a man wrapped in bacon caught by hungry tigers. After perhaps a minute of staring, dad decided to break the ice with a cough.

"So, Ben, I realized that I have have overreacted a little just now. I'm sorry, and thank you, I guess, for taking care of Taylor.

The larger man nodded, looking rather uncomfortable.

"Don't mention it. And yeah, I think I can understand why you went ballistic on me. Reputation and all." Dad chuckled at the last part.

I looked between them, feeling more than a little confused. I had expected this to go down a lot worse than it did.

"Wait, you two know each other?" I asked.

"I used to work for the Dockworkers Union before moving on to the scrapyard." Benjamin answered, eyeing my dad uneasily. "I'd had an...unsavory reputation with the ladies."

"Ben fancied himself a player back then. When I saw him with you at the door after you went missing last night, I assumed the worst." Dad filled in, making me winced and felt a little sick at that particular image.

"Anyway, we're not here to discuss my misadventures or the best location for an impromptu burial." The larger man cut in before I could voice my opinion on that matter. "Danny, how much do you know about Tinkers?"

"They build gadgets, I think. Machines and the likes. That's about all of it, right?."

"That's about the extent most people know. What they don't usually know is that tinkers rather vulnerable to being press-ganged and kidnapped."

My dad immediately went taut and shuffled closer to me on the sofa, placing a hand on my shoulder."

"Why?" I could practically feel his rage bubbling behind those words. Fortunately for Ben, it wasn't aimed at him specifically.

"They're very valuable as a force multiplier. Almost all of them have unusual quirks that can give away their civilian identities. They are functionally normal humans when they start out, so it's simple enough to get them to comply. Moreover, the gangs got feelers everywhere, keeping an eye out for possible parahumans, and tinkers are more conspicuous than most from the mannerism. I should know." He stopped, and took a deep breath. When he continued, he didn't dare to look at dad.

"I'm one of them, the feelers, I mean. I work for Kaiser."

If dad was tense before, he was like someone frozen by Clockblocker now. Not a single muscle on his body so much as twitched. Still, if look could kill, his eyes would have bore a hole through Scion. I didn't know what miraculous cosmic force managed to keep him from exploding, but I was thankful anyway.

"Dad, it's not as bad as you think. He didn't report me." I spoke up, trying desperately to diffuse him before something horrible happen.

"I've made questionable choices, yeah. But I'm not selling out someone who saved me, Danny."

Dad remained still for an eternity of a second before taking a deep breath and dropped down on the couch.

"I'll take my daughter's word on this. But, we're going to have words later, Aronowicz."

Ben nodded, and made for the door.

"You should get some rest, Danny. Your daughter needs her dad right now. Please come to the scrapyard sometime tomorrow, we can talk there, and you can see what Taylor can do." My dad nodded, and the larger man left. A second later, he poked his head back in, looking rather conflicted.

"Oh, and Danny… it's nice to see you again."

My dad stared at him for a second, his face cycled through confusion, shock, surprise, and anger before settling on resignation.

"If only I can say the same, Ben." The other man sighed and closed the door, and I found myself alone with dad again.

This time, I quickly found myself at his side, curling into him. For the first time in too long, I could finally feel like I had a father again.


	5. Breakthrough 1-5

I just want to say, thank all of you for your support. This level of attention on my first fic is just insane.

* * *

That night, I was dreaming again. Unlike last time, this dream was much more impersonal, much more...third-person. It felt as if I was watching a documentary of some sort.

I saw them again, the green-eyed ghosts, the Heterodyne. Peerless geniuses, inventors, madmen. I watched as they ripped through the tinker-ruled Europa like a force of nature. Terrible and relentless.

I recognized the exploits shown. I was part of them. I lead them. I gave the orders. Or at least, I remembered I did.

I watched, both intrigued and horrified by their actions, until it all had blurred together and I found myself sitting ramrod straight on my bed, covered in cold sweat.

The ghosts were there again, they never left, I could just make them out at the corner of my vision. They didn't speak, merely whispered gibberish. Yet, somehow, I knew that I could hear them if I just concentrate enough.

Knowing that I wasn't getting any anymore sleep, I decided to do a little net surfing, to get my mind off the voices in my head and the recent murders I'd committed.

Yes, I'm sane. Why do you ask?

I walked out into the dark hallway, stumbling and groping blindly in the darkness and the haze of sleep. I could have turned the light on, but the fluorescent bulb would have burned a hole through my still sensitive eyes.

"Taylor?" Dad's voice greeted me as I walked down the stair. He was in the living room, sitting in a couch with a huge bottle in hand, scotch, from the look of it. Unlike me, he looked like he didn't even sleep at all.

"Dad? Are you drinking again?" I said accusingly. I didn't like it when Dad drank, and neither did Mom. He looked guiltily at the bottle in his hand and sighed.

"I'm sorry, kiddo. I just think I need a stiff drink right now."

We looked at each other awkwardly for a second, neither side really knew what we were supposed to be doing. I knew that dad wanted to talk to me more, and I wanted to talk to him just as much. The problem being, I didn't know how to start. All these years, I've been looking after myself for so long, I had forgotten how to ask for help, forgotten that I had a father. Dad, on the other hand, was definitely even more clueless than I was. I must have been a complete stranger to him, just as he was to me.

 _When you wage war on the world, your family is your only allies._

Ok?

 _Jusht tok to hyu popa, sveethot!_

Alright, you know what? I could build machines that violate all laws of nature and make pretzels out of common sense. I'd be damned if I cannot fix my family life. Summoning the courage for the daunting task ahead, I sat down at his side and took the bottle from his grasp.

"Really, dad? Do I need to give you the talk on being a responsible adult? Because I really want to."

On his part, dad avoided my eyes as his face flushed red with what I assumed was guilt and embarrassment. He didn't say anything, and I didn't have anything to add. Deciding that I wasn't going to stand around moping like this, I tried to goad on him a little.

"Dad, do you remember what you and...mom… had always said about dealing with problems? About how we need to confront them, or they'll never sort themselves out?" He winced, but nodded nonetheless. A contemplative look on his face,

"I...I think that's where we messed up, dad." Deafening silence reigned after that as we both tried to process that. We both knew that if we want our family back, we must try to reach out to each other. That would mean trying to break a wall that had grown between us, a task that I was sure none of us was really comfortable with.

Between any other father-daughter pair, it may have been simple. However, this was Taylor and Danny Hebert. We're both too mulishly stubborn, too prone to action rather than words. Unfortunately, this wasn't something that can be solved by being stubborn.

"How're you holding up, Taylor?"He started, and I looked at him, uncertain of how to respond. After a few seconds of thinking, I decided that if dad was going in, then so was I.

"I think I'm fine, but...I keep having these weird dreams. It's a little too real, and it didn't feel like imagination, like I'm reliving memories that didn't happen."

Dad frowned, and placed a hand on my shoulders.

"I assume it's bad?" I nodded.

"It's like..like I was leading the Slaughterhouse Nine or something, only they were an entire family of tinkers in a world that ran on tinkers. It was weird, and it didn't make sense at all."

I couldn't really read Dad's face when he looked at me and placed his hand on my shoulders.

"Honey, I'm not a psychologist, but do you think you're just blaming yourself too hard over this?"

I thought about that. Am I? Is this just the way that my guilt was eating at me? It would make sense, except I honestly couldn't find any remorse or guilt over killing them. Horrified at the fact that I didn't feel guilt, but no guilt at all in the first place. It was more like a reminder, I suppose, of what I could become.

"I'm not sure." I answered. "Perhaps? I don't think so."

"If circumstances were better, I would have gotten you an expert who actually know what they're doing." Dad groaned and sit back. "Jesus, what can I even do? I should be able to help you somehow, damn it! "

Right, good job, Taylor. It was going so well until you drove your dad into depression...again.

 _Oh, for fuck sake! Engage the emergency Heterodyne sappy-time maneuver no.3!_

Before I could query on what exactly was that, my limbs moved on my own, and I found myself wrapped around dad.

"You're trying, dad. I think that's good enough." He froze before nodding slowly and ran his hand through my hair.

Huh, so that was the emergency Heterodyne sappy-time maneuver no.3. Ingenious!

A few minutes passed between us as we caught up to some long overdue father-daughter conversation before I finally worked up the courage to drop the other shoe on him. Unfortunately, I didn't work up enough of that to say it in an intelligible fashion.

"DadIhearvoicesinmyhead!"

"Uh..can you repeat that, kiddo?"

I took a deep breath, and went slower this time. If I could turn the Atlantic to fondue, I could tell my dad that I may be incurably insane.

But I'm not, cause I'm not insane! I'll prove it!

"Dad, I hear voices...in my head. And I see things aren't there. I think I'm seeing the ghosts of the people in my dream. They tell me things, show me how to… tinker, I guess?"

Dad face was absolutely blank as he reached for his bottle. A withering stare from me discouraged that, even though his face remained unchanged.

"Is there anything else they're telling you?" I nodded.

"They're...not good people. I mean, I think they are trying to help me, but their advices were extreme, at the very least. They're not forcing me to do as they say, but they're there, and sometime they won't stop speaking."

Dad kept a remarkably straight face for someone who was probably both drunk and was just told that his daughter heard voices in her head. Although, given the everything I've hit him with today, he was either inured or was experiencing the parental version of shell shock. Probably shell shock. Although, given the cause, it would be teenage-daughter shock. Teenage-parahuman-daughter shock? Teenage-parahuman-daughter-with-voices-in-head shock?

Taylor shock?

 _Honey, the word you're looking for is PHSD, or Post-Heterodyne Stress Disorder. Luckily, it isn't what's happening right now._

"Benjamin said something about noticeable behaviors, do you think this is it?" Right! Mending relationship with Dad, I was doing that!

I shrugged, I've never heard of power that manifest as voices in your head, but Myrrdin thought he's a wizard, so why not?

"Probably? I don't think it's anything worth worrying though. They're… nice, in a way. Nice to me, at least. It's just… they don't really care about anything at all, from what I've seen."

Dad frowned as he gave me a once over.

"Taylor, I don't have to worry about you crawling backward down the stair on all four puking blood, do I?" I glared and punched him for that. I still remember watching that damned movie from Aleph with him, so long ago, acting all cool and unflappable until that scene. I literally jumped into his arms.

Although, no demon from hell came even close to Mom when she realized dad let me watch that movie.

"Ouch! Assaulting your own father?! My daughter truly is possessed!" I snorted and turned away from him, putting up a show of sulking.

"I hate you, Dad." I whined mockingly and glared at the ground. Behind me, dad made several choking sound that was so melodramatic I feared Shakespeare may have crawled out of his grave to gave him some acting advice.

After maybe a full five minutes of horrid melodrama, I cracked a tiny smile. Dad caught onto me and doubled down on his cheese, with sent me into a giggling fit. I gave him a playful shove, trying to get him to stop. He slid off the couch, still deep in his own acting, before he stumbled over the table and got scotch all over himself. I laughed like an idiot.

I wish we got to do more dumb shit like this instead of worrying about seven murder charges.

 _Vy not both? Ze best papa-baby gurl bondink 'ctivity iz ze vun vere hyu both bath in ze blud o' ze slaughta!_

Please! She's a modern, sophisticated lady. They should build a death ray together. Maybe terrorize a country or two.

"Hey, uh...Taylor?" Dad's voice brought me back to reality. He had managed to pick himself off the ground and had squeezed most of the alcohol from his shirt. He wasn't smiling, but there was happiness in his eyes, alongside with something else. Fear? Regret?

"I really wanted...to ask you something. Can you...forgive me?" Oh.

Oh.

Well, that suddenly got...awkward.

Could I forgive him? I would be lying to myself if I've said that, then and there, everything was water under the bridge. The truth was the truth, he wasn't there when I needed him most. He retreated into himself, forgetting that he had a daughter. But…

But..

But he was trying. He was trying to make it up to me, somehow. Right now, he needed me just as much as I needed him. No single party was responsible for the mess that had became of my family. No single party could fix it.

"It's gonna be ok, Dad. We're gonna be ok." He seemed taken aback by this, but he smiled nonetheless and hugged me. Well, he would, if I didn't instinctively pushed him off from how much he reeked.

"Right, uh...I should take a shower." He chuckled awkwardly, scratching his neck in embarrassment. "You should get some sleep."

I nodded, and dropped down. I was feeling quite tired, after all. At some point, dad returned, smelling fresh on some long forgotten habit, I put my head on his lap, and drifted off.

One way or another, this family's getting fixed, even if I have to burn Earth-Bet to the ground. -  
The morning after, I woke up alone on the couch to the smell of something burning in the kitchen. Jolting awake and operating on instinct, I rushed in to assess the damage. Fortunately, the kitchen wasn't on fire. Unfortunately, Dad was cooking.

You see, there was a practical reason as to why I handled the cooking after Mom left us, mostly because Dad's cooking qualified as a biohazard.

"Oh, good morning Taylor!" Dad called out to me. He was wearing a very, very stained apron. "I made breakfast!"

Much to my surprise, the two plates of toasts, bacons, and eggs he had laid out on the table was not just fit for human consumption, it looked actually delicious.

"Dad, how many tries did it take?"

"Hmm? Enough." I cast several glances at the oddly empty bin. No evidence there.

"Enough?" I pressed, trying to sate my own curiosity more than anything else.

"Enough." He confirmed. Oh well, I guess he managed in the end, so it was all well.

 _Indeede, thee fath'r engagede 'pon a sci'ncetific exp'riment for ye discovere o cookinth methode! Tis a commem'rable efforte!  
_  
What?  
 _  
He said your dad did scientific experiment and produced results. Good for him_

Ah, okay... What kind of English was that?

 _The kind that was never spoken by an Englishman._

My musing was cut short when dad started snapping his fingers into my ears.

"-aylor! Taylor! You there?" I blinked owlishly and nodded. "What happened? You suddenly just zoned out on me."

"I was...uh...talking to the voices in my head?" I answered honestly. Maybe I could have phrased that in a way that made me sound saner in someway, but I'm not sure how sane I am. "They said it's nice that you're experimenting."

I didn't sound that insane, did I?

"Taylor, you're scaring me. You sound insane." Well, he was my dad, so he probably should be a little more worried than most people. Right? I'd just go with that.

Not crazy. Definitely not crazy. I'll show them all!

Breakfast was, as predicted, delicious, and made better by the fact that me and Dad were kinda maybe probably communicating with each other for a change. Granted, it was mostly awkward silences, but we both were trying. After that, we got into the car and dad drove us to Benjamin's place. A junkyard, on the edge of Merchant and ABB territory.

Dad apparently knew the place from words on the street and told me about it as we drove. A chop shop that dealt with both gangs and a neutral ground of sort. Knowing who the owner answer to, that place probably rake in intelligence in the form of rumors and gossips. Ben was really making himself useful.

Perfect minion material.

Shut up, voices in my head.

 _Vazan't us, sveethot!_

I shut that conversation down before I could delve on it any further and turned my eyes to the road. The streets and buildings were old, crumbling things, more hazards than homes. Cracked pavements and walls were the norm, and gang graffiti stretched as far as the eyes could see. If I squinted hard enough, I could make out splotches of dried blood staining the concrete.

A hell hole.

How was this not fixed? This could be fixed? I could fix this, for fuck's sake. I could clean this damn city up in one month top if I just had their resources. I could clean this damn planet up in one month top if I had the resources.

Maybe I should just take this into my own hands. The current parties were obviously unfit to-NO! Stop!

 _But the fun side has cookies, sweetie!_

I banged my head against the side window.

"You fine back there, Taylor?" Dad asked, casting worried glances over his shoulder as he tried to keep an eye on the road.

"Don't worry, dad. I'm NOT taking over the world! I am NOT!" Was my answer.

The car was rather silent after that and remained that way until we arrived.

The junkyard was closed, off for Sunday, I would guess. The portly figure of Benjamin was visible in the distance, he was sitting on a sidewalk and smoking with a couple of burly men whom I assumed was his security. He spotted our car and said something to the men, who, in turned, pulled the heavy gate open. We drove in and parked in an empty lot.

"Danny." He greeted dad warily as we step off the car. Dad nodded back and shook his hand, putting a little more force than called for, judging from his wince.

"Mii..is. Taylor!" He said toward me. Miss Taylor? That was weird. Maybe he was trying to sound professional since Dad's here. Did he just bow? Nah, probably just stumbled.

Over nothing.

Yeah.

 _Ze best vuns alvays resist!_

Once again, I pointedly ignored that as Ben led us through the junkyard and choose to keep my eyes on the mountains of old junks and scrapped vehicles the surrounded us. I could practically hear my blood singing and neurons firing at the mere thought of working with all of them. All the things I could build. All the terror I could unleash on Winslow, on the Trio. I'll show them. I'll show the-

Shut up, voices in my head.  
 _  
Still vazn't us, sveethot!_

Choosing to deal with my potential mania at another time and another place, I pulled myself back to reality. Ben had led us deep into the yard, an old section, with nothing but rusted metal carcasses in sight. Tucked between one mount of twisted metal and another was a large white truck. A logo on the side indicated it had belonged to "Al's Transit" or some equally nondescript, most likely made up, company.

Ben opened the container. Inside, I spotted the make-shift plasma cannon in the corner. Several large white crates which I knew contain human parts, a gutted mess of flesh and steel that I recognized as the incubation pod, and the construct.

The construct.

Now that it wasn't trying to pulverize us, I could get a better look in, and all I could say was that she was stupidly beautiful.

She was built like an Amazonian, and I didn't mean it as a bodybuilder, because they have realistic proportions. The construct was something straight out of a comic book or a video game. A perfectly toned body, with curves in just the right places, abs to grind meat on, perfect boobs, perfect ass, perfect, unblemished bronze skin, perfect, silky black hair… the only blemish was the gaping holes through her stomach and chest.

Why the fuck did I build her to be a walking fan service?

 _Well, all proper overlords need a sexy female minion to tear the enemies limb from limb while being all suggestive and shit._

That's... insightful!

 _Yep! Now you must get a mysterious giant in plate armor who never says anything. And you can consider the muscley portion of your court done._

Right, something to sleep on then. Back to the construct!

I gave her a few experimental poke; Her body was actually much softer than I had expected from her display. Either she could harden her body on demand, or she had some kind of skintight forcefield.

Although, after a close look at her mouth, I immediately retracted my statement on the whole perfect and unblemished thing. Baring fetishes, her dental was nothing short of terrifying. Sharp teeth filled her mouth, something that belonged on a wild beast that lived to rip and tear flesh. It was like someone had ripped a shark's mouth off and shoved it into a human skull.

 _Hoy, hy rem'mber dot! Good time!_

Actually, it was exactly that. Close inspection on her gum revealed row of small, white nubs behind her relatively normal front row. Even concealed as they were now, these "nubs" were sharp enough to draw blood when my fingers traced over them.

Retractable, secondary teeth rows things. Even sharper than the first. Definitely shark-inspired. I wonder what her bite-strength was.

Who was I kidding? Somebody out there definitely found this hot.

 _Verra hawt, ya?_

One of the voices in my head found this hot.

"You made this?" I heard Dad ask, and nodded. After a few prods, I pointed towards a knife in the corner and snapped my fingers. Ben immediately fetched it.

"Not directly though." I mused, trying to break her skin. Stabbing and slicing didn't work. Even sawing her was futile. Not something that must requires conscious input, then.  
 _  
There are signs of Cassanova and his Battlebabes in her._

Her body iz almozt like ze Jäger-kin. 'fen beeter!

"No way I could have worked on something like her. I must have made the pod over there and it probably handled putting her together. Angle grinder?"

"Cutting disc?" I nodded, and the appropriate tool was in my hand.

"May I ask what you're doing and why?" Dad asked as I started sawing away at the hole in the construct's stomach, trying to widen the gap so I could have better access to her internal organs. Luckily enough, the grinder worked fine, even if we went through a couple of saw discs.

"Inspecting for damage, mostly. She busted out of her own pod early, so some parts must have been malformed or unfinished. Then I can get started on healing her. Dad, can you hold the cut over there back for a few seconds? I wanted to check on this wobbly bit here." Dad nodded and pulled the incision open. I squinted and peered into the open wound, a little too dark…

"Here." Ben said as he offered me his phone, the flashlight already on. I offered him a nod of gratitude and returned to my inspection, this time with illumination.

"Wait, you're going to bring her back? Wasn't she dangerous?" Dad asked again, trepidation evident in his voice.

Most girls may have been annoyed by the pressing. Me? I'm just happy to talk with my dad, even if it's about reviving an abomination of Science(!).

"Well, I think I know how to fix the aggression issue. We should try to heal her anyway, since I wounded her in the first place. Would be a shame if we just left her like this." I grinned as I started digging deeper into the construct's body. I didn't recognize any of these organs. They were all engineered from the ground up, from the look of this.

 _Well, proper artist don't bother with mass produced parts. We make our own homegrown._

"Not dead? She had two holes the size my fists and spent a whole damn day covered in dry ice?" My head minion exclaimed as he turned even paler. "These are very large fists!"

I ignored him as I focused on the construct. The ghosts were back in full force now. They gathered around me, their beautiful melody shut the world away. At that moment, there was only us, and the construct.

The world became vibrant and clear as the memories poured forth like a tide from a broken dam. I designed this construct, built her up from scratch. I knew her workings, her biology.

Her inner mechanisms weren't that strange, but very redundant; She didn't have organs, more like organ sets. Each set was divided into two sections: The outer section handled all the job required to keep the body running, while the inner specialized section handled specific tasks. In short, her organs were just the same as a normal human's, if a normal human's liver could keep them alive and well indefinitely.

There were also little spheres tucked away across her body. They were like...Backup archives of her brain. Not exactly a decentralized system, but as long as one of these archive survive, her brain would regenerate.

 _Ye Lorde! Tis a toughe one indeede_

I flipped her over, and examined her spine. As far as I could tell, that was her Achilles' Heel. The only reason I managed to put her down is by blowing a gap the size of my palm through it, and it was regrowing as even as I watched.

"Not dead, just paralyzed. Give her a day, and she'd be back on her feet." An odd, choking sound came from Benjamin as I said that.

Right, well, I knew how to fix her. But, more importantly, I knew I could improve her. She may had been a masterwork, but she was rushed, and built on limited resources. Now that time was on my side and there was a junkyard at my disposal, I could make her so much better. Sub-dermal alloy armor, or maybe molecularly bonded to her skin; mechanized skeleton; alternate muscle fiber; death rays…

Death rays! I have one right here! Power intensive, but if I could fit a power source inside her, I could configure her metabolism to run off of that to and downsize her digestive system, or maybe reconfigure it to become an oversized acid gland…

I think I saw some smoke alarms on the way in…

"Benjamin, I need you to acquire some items for me." He nodded, and I started listing off what I needed as he jotted it down on a list.

"Right on it, mistress." He snapped a salute. "Although, I'm not sure where I could get some of them on such short notice."

"I think I can help with that. Recognize a few of those, and I knew the suppliers." Dad chimed in from behind us as he looked down at the list. "I could pull some favors."

A massive grin splitted my face as I hugged him, right before pushing both of them out of my lab.

"Perfect! I love both of you. Don't disappoint!"


	6. Breakthrough 1-6

Well, due to some technical difficulties, mainly video games being too addictive and my writing too shitty, this chapter needed to be rewritten at a much slower pace than I would have preferred. Furthermore, the rewritten version was not put through the beta grinder, because I either cannot reach them at the moment, or have received no replies.

Still, I've delayed this chapter long enough, so I did go over it a few time, even though I am shit at finding my own errors, and I did got Samarkand's input on this.

This is a rather rough version, and will be subjected to future grammar corrections. With that said, some shit is better than no shit, right?

"So...that happened."

Danny nodded silently in agreement, his eyes focused on the windows and the building passing by as he pointedly tried not to strangle the speaker. Strangling the driver would be rather detrimental to his health, after all.

Benjamin, however, decided to press his luck, just a little.

"You didn't come over with the intent to help her with creating life, did you?"

"No. Caught in the enthusiasm." Danny replied stiffly. Maybe at the next stop? Benjamin was half again bigger than Danny, but the bigger they are…

On some level, Danny understood that he was, perhaps, being a tad bit unfair to the larger man. However, when your old acquaintance admitted that they worked for the Nazi and their job involved ratting out people like your daughter, Danny thought a little paranoia and preemptive problem solving might be justified.

"I hope that is the case… Ah, last stop." Benjamin stated as he pulled the pick-up over in front of a rather shady and run down looking building.

The moment they stepped through the door, Danny had to fight down the urge to gag. The building smelled like old cabbage and rotten pickles. The owner, sitting half-asleep behind a termite-infested counter, looked like someone had dressed a mummy up in relatively modern clothes and propped it there.

The entire building looked like the most cliche Eastern medicine shop possible, with jars of what Danny could only describe as pickled insects, spiders, and reptiles. Several large wooden boxes filled with shrivelled plants and mushrooms were scattered here and there, and occasionally Danny spotted signs of nigh-unidentifiable pieces of dried organs.

As the pudgy man walked over to haggle with the proprietor over the items on their shopping list, Danny kept himself occupied by browsing the wares on display. He was neither a chemist nor a botanist, but what few plants he did recognize did nothing but set off alarm bells in his head over the nature of their purchases and the legality of this location in general. Worryingly enough, he had the same misgiving over the last dozen locations they had visited. It took several distressingly long minutes before they finally acquired what they came for, and both left with haste.

"By God, what did we buy there, potions and elixirs?" Danny quipped as they threw the bag into the back of the pick-up which was already carrying several more bags and boxes from their shopping trip. Benjamin nodded in agreement as he deposited his bags.

"The list was weird." Benjamin answered, as he fiddled with his key to open the car door, an act that was interrupted by Danny grabbing his shoulder.

"Since this is the last stop, I figure we have something to...discuss before we return." Danny whispered as the larger man tensed under his grip. Frantically, he looked around, seeking an escape that he knew didn't exist. A moment passed, and he deflated.

"Damn... Alright, I knew this was coming. Shoot away." Benjamin grumbled. Danny nodded, and decided to go right down to business.

"How can I trust you not to hurt my daughter?" Despite himself, Benjamin chuckled weakly even as he searched for a proper answer.

"Right, that… You know why I'm...was running with the Empire? I mean, unlike the skinheads, you are obviously aware of my heritage."

"Don't deflect my question." Danny groused, his hand gripping Benjamin shoulder hard enough to be painful.

"Getting there!" The beleaguered ganger yelped. "Right, point is: I joined them because they would make my problems at the time go away. Kaiser's also a really scary dude, biggest fish in the Bay, so I tried to not disappoint.

Thing is, there's an even bigger fish now, and she probably disagrees with Kaiser. Somehow, I know that horrible things will happen to me if I pick him over her." The silence that fell after he finished his explanation was only broken by the barely audible sound of Danny grinding his teeth.

"My daughter. Is not. A monster." Danny ground out, furious eyes fixed into Benjamin's own. The larger man simply nodded and met the glare.

"Of course, but that's the scary part. You don't need to be a monster to be terrifying, Danny. The scariest things don't have to try. They don't have to bluster and throw threats around. They are terrifying simply because they are!"

Danny narrowed his eyes even as Benjamin reached into his pocket, retrieving a cigarette which he lit and brought to his mouth.

"So, the only proof I have of your loyalty is that you're afraid." Danny concluded with a frown as his gazed fixed on Benjamin. The large man fidgeted uncomfortably for a second, before he mustered the courage to meet Danny's gaze.

"Yes, and fear can go a long way. The Prince and all."

"Machiavelli was joking." Danny replied and walked around to the other side of the truck. Benjamin started and scratched his chin uncomfortably.

"Well… You know, people didn't really believe in the whole superpower things when they came up with it in the first place. Funny how things turned out, right?" Danny said nothing in response as Ben unlocked the car and started the engine. "Your daughter is waiting, come on."

Nodding silently, Danny entered the pick-up. His mind occupied with the words his daughter had said. In more ways than one, he wanted to deny it, to deny the thought that his little Taylor could be some kind of terrifying tyrannical figure, some kind of evil overlord straight out of old fairy tales.

At the same time, he was not sure if that was what he really wanted. He trusted his daughter, he knew that she was, and would always be, a good person at heart, maybe she could be scary, but that didn't mean she had to be evil.

"I don't like this." Danny muttered, his eyes once again on the road. "I don't like any of this."

"None of us does, Danny. I have a question for you." Ben's voice summoned him back to Earth once more. "Do you think that we can keep your daughter off the cape scene?"

Danny closed his eyes and thought about that. Ideally, he wanted to keep her away from the chaos of parahuman battles and politics. To keep her safe and sound forever, but…

But he knew that was impossible.

"Too much Annette in her." He whispered with equal part pride and sadness, and Benjamin nodded in understanding.

"At the end of the day, I'm just a crony in the grand scale of things, but I am...was… a useful crony, and I knew more than your average henchman. I don't know how much I can help, but I will."

Tinkering, I realized, was pretty goddamn weird.

It was like entering a trance. At first, there were all these noises, all these distractions, that prevented me from focusing. And then the music came, and the entire world seemingly just stopped existing. There were only me, my work, the ghosts, and the music.

The ghosts and the music, those were linked somehow. The ghosts were always there, wispy presences at the corner of my eyes, but when the strange music rose within my mind and came out of my mouth, the ghosts...coalesced, for a lack of better word. They were no longer semi-transparent shadows, but actual people. If it wasn't for the fact that they could not interact with the world, I would have thought they were real.

This time, they didn't tell me what to do. They watched silently as I worked. Occasionally, they would offer their own advices and insights, mostly in the form of cryptic hints to guide my mind toward the right conclusions. I was an apprentice, and they were my masters, helping me to discover their craft.

And discovered I did. I somehow took to it like a fish to water. There was a thrill that I could not describe in cutting the construct open and slowly unravel the secret behind her working, as well as a craving that pushed me forward. It was my first taste of tinkering, of Science, and it felt good.

At some point, I went from studying transhuman biology to improving transhuman biology. I didn't have a clear cut goal in mind, only that I just wanted to make her better. For what purpose? I did not know.

It all started with the plasma lance. It was an energy hog, so I need to supply the energy somehow. I had many options. I could have installed supercapacitor banks, or a miniature internal combustion engine. Or, I could try making a slap-dash nuclear generator from the smoke alarms lying around.

The voices in my head, surprisingly enough, had never heard of nuclear energy, which made for even greater incentive for me to test the idea out. I started from a few articles and Wikipedia entries, and worked my way onward from there.

By the time I had a working prototype, I had already cannibalized the entire truck to set up a little shack of a workshop and got a dozen gray in my system or somewhere in that ballpark. I decided to put that off my mind for now. It would be a few days before I started dying, so I had more than enough time to scrub my body.

After getting the reactor in place, I realized I could reconfigure her body to run off of that instead of digestion. So I did, and suddenly I had a spare digestive tract.

I wasn't one for waste, so I turned that into an oversized acid gland, pumping out flouroantimonic acid. There was a tiny issue with acidic fume eating through, well, everything, but a few added reagents greatly enhanced acidity and made sure it would react so vigorously in the presence of oxygen that there shouldn't be anything left to reach anyone.

Taking a few artistic advices from the ghosts, I pumped the acid around the reactor for heating and out through canals in her teeth to inject the acid directly into whatever she bitten on. Apparently, shark-cobra hybrids were a classic.

At this point, I was just stumbled. I have just reversed engineered an artificial human, improved her, and rediscovered fission power, so what next? Knowing that I was going to die a painful death soon if I neglect my radiation poisoning, I decided to just add satae pads to her limbs to enhance her freedom of movement before prepping her into the pod and turned my mind back to the whole impending doom thing. The pod would gather materials to finalize and actually implement the more drastic changes I had design via an incubation process.

As I waited for Dad and Benjamin to return, I kept myself occupied with inventing a remedy for my current inconvenience. It really wasn't that complicated, an external blood purifier and some quick and dirty gene therapy to undo the damage already done, and I should be good as new. Better, actually, if I have the time to enhance my body. I really disliked my stickman build right now. A little muscle and femininity would be really nice.

Or a lot. I wouldn't mind a body like the construct's.

I was designing the purification grid when I heard car engine and Dad calling me. A grin crept onto my face and I felt giddy just thinking about what to come. In a way, it reminded me of how I felt during my first chemistry experiment years ago, when I felt the same thing as I watched the solutions changed color and bubbled as reactions that were beyond my then childish mind took place. Excitement, and wonder.

"Holy shit!" Ben breathed as he step off the pick-up and looked upon my workshack. "What happened to the truck? There was a truck."

I chuckled and pushed past him to grab the bags. Cleaning fluid, baking soda, pesticides, soft drink, Brown Recluse extracts… pretty much everything I've ordered.

 _It's good, having a resourceful minion._ A feminine voice commented, a girl slightly older than me, probably college age, with long golden hair marked by a cowlick.

"Yep!" I answered as I started putting everything into place. "Can you imagine how I would make it otherwise?"

 _Izzn't dat bad, aztually. hy managed fer a vile until I dezigned my own boyz._ A man cut in, He was bald and handsome, in an oddly cruel way. Most of his body was hidden under heavy robe, and he seemed to almost flicker and shift when I wasn't paying attention.

"Only the best quality, I assumed?" I asked, and he nodded, a proud grin on his face as the ghosts around me chuckled.

"Danny, your daughter's talking to herself."

"I know."

Well, I was getting to that, but mass produced super soldiers to trample the world under my heel come later. Baby steps... for now, at least. I monitored the pod's input feed, watching intently as the display informed me of the construct's and the feed's status. With the final ingredient loaded into the cocoon, I turned to my chief minion, a manic grin on my face as I issued my command.

"Throw the lever, Ben!" I shouted, pointing to his left where a very large and conspicuous lever was installed.

"How and when did you… I'm not questioning anything anymore." He muttered and pulled it.

The moment the lever came into place, the very world came alive as lightning danced from from coils to wires, bathing the remote corner of the scrapyard under a blinding glow. Ben and Dad yelped and threw themselves to the ground. As for myself, having personally designed this lightshow, knew that it was one hundred percent safe and decided it was the perfect time for a laugh. And laughed I did. A long, hard, empowering laugh, filled with arrogance and satisfaction. A laugh that heralded the completion of my latest work. It was an obligatory venting laugh, NOT, an evil laugh.

 _Sure honey, you need to place greater emphasis on the "ah" sound instead of the "eh" sound. I don't think the witch laugh really suit you._ Cowlick girl commented helpfully.

The pod throbbed and spasmed as its veins were filled with thousands of viscous concoctions that would fuel the rapid incubation process. Even though I could not see it, I knew the construct was being torn apart by the pod, her inside liquidated then reformed into new designs by thousands of little manipulators inside the incubator.

Suddenly, a row of capacitors implanted into the pod glowed bright and burst into flame, before exploding into little conflagrations of electricity and fire. My entire makeshift lab was practically consumed by a lightning storm at this point, and it was beautiful.

"Was that supposed to happen?" My minion's squeaky voiced reached me, causing my cackle to was low on the ground, doing a cross between a squat and a crouch as he hugged his legs and generally tried to do the best impression of a ball.

"YES" I declared. How am I supposed to be aware of when it's ready? It was like an egg timer going off. A really, really cool, egg timer.

Right on cue, the pod's outer shell cracked and sickly green light shone from within the spreading fractures. It gave one last throb before its muscles tore itself apart in a spectacular shower of crackling sparks and burnt flesh. When it finally settled down, all that was left was a small, almost formless sack of skin, twitching gently in a puddle of boiling incubation fluid. It shook once, then twice, before four rows of teeth pierced through the skin and an outline of a female face could be seen pressed into the skin sack. There was a wet tearing sound later, as my construct bit and ripped her way free and had her first...well, second taste of life, unclouded by all-consuming murderous intent, this time around.

 _Isn't she beautiful?_ I nodded in silent agreement as I watched her crawled up to all four and started experimentally sniffing the air. She was either unused to her sight, or there was something stuck in her eyes, seeing how she kept blinking rapidly and occasionally reached up to rub at them.

"Hey there..." I called, reach out to her. "Do you recognize me?"

She looked up at me innocently. Her large, amber eyes blinking owlishly and her face scrunched in concentration, most likely in search of her memories. They should be mostly hazy at best, given how her mind was malformed at the time we first met.

"I made you." I said with a bright smile, and she gave a confused stare in response. Chuckling to myself, I snatched a fleshy piece of the pod and offered to her. "Are you hungry?"

She eyed the offered piece hungrily, drools dripping from her mouth. I giggled and tossed the piece to her, which she immediately snatched out of the air and tore into with gusto.

 _Dat iz oddly teme for a firsht conshtruct..._ Bald robe guy said as he flowed over to examine her. _Hy'm proud ov de craftmanship, bot Hy haf expected more rempagink._

 _Dere vas plenty ov rampagink._ Another voice cut in, strong, powerful, commanding. I didn't see the speaker, being to focus on watching my construct chewing on the piece of the pod. It took her minutes to went through that before a bright smile crossed her face. She sniffed at me, rubbing her head into my palm with her tongue rolling out and generally acted like a hyperactive dog begging for food.

"Taylor, is she...safe?" Dad asked as I fed her another piece, this one with a piece of metal sticking out of it. She took no notice of it as she practically inhaled it.

"She's perfectly safe, dad." I replied cheerily as she jumped past me, her eyes widened in recognition as they locked onto Ben.

"Uh...why is she doing that?" He asked, taking several steps back as the construct stalked up to him. I frowned, racking my brain for an answer. There's really no reason she would be that focused on someone, unless…

"Oh, I think she imprinted you from back in the warehouse, I guess you're like, her dad or something, or chew toy, I'm not sure." I answered, watching curiously as she pounced at Ben and missed rather clumsily. He responded with a high-pitched shriek as took off into the scrapyard, my construct hot in pursuit.

"Uh, Taylor, shouldn't you be...doing something?" Dad asked me with a slight note of concern in his voice as he watched them left.

"It's fine." I shrugged. "She just wanted to play a little. Bet she was really curious."

Grinning to myself, I turned my attention back to my now definitely wrecked workshack. It was fun while it lasted, and I definitely got a lot of pent up stress off my chest, but now everything is such a mess! How do the voices in my head deal with the after-match? Do they have a living lab that just clean itself up when the fun was over? Then again, I didn't really need to clean much up, this was, after all, a junkyard. Still, I did feel a little sorry for Ben, having to put up with this.

 **"** **Jesus Christ she ate the engine block!"** I shrugged again as Ben's shrill scream reached us. He was having a great time with the construct anyway.

 _Zis iz verra intereshtink und all, but hyu fergot ze important part. vhat do ve call her?_ Robe guy asked, his head peaking over my shoulder. I nodded and hummed thoughtfully. Yes, what should I name her?

 _Zo God created mankind in hiz own image, in de image uf God he created dem; male und female he created dem._ He intoned mockingly. I blinked and turned to the bald man. His grin met me, massive and predatory. It was just a petty challenge, I realized. Little more than a playground dare. I practically heard the "Do it or no ball" from his shit-eating grin.

And yet…

Why couldn't I resist?

 _Iz becauze hyu iz a shmot gurl, like uz._ He answered. Right, he's in my head.

"Eve…" I whispered, and his grin stretched even further, much to my amazement. Dad gave me a confused look, having probably missed the conversation between me and the troupe of psychopaths that was currently freeloading in my skull.

"Taylor?" He asked worriedly.

"I'll call her Eve." I said with a massive, toothy grin. Dad responded with a silent stare, his mouth gaping slightly and eyes wide.

"Uh...Taylor…" He called, stuttering a little as I turned my eyes back on the blueprint for my purifier/genetic enhancer.

"Yes, Dad?" I answered, looking over my shoulders at him.

"I... well, I think we need to talk about a few things." He said, sitting down on the hood of a rusted hulk of a car and gestured for me to sit down next to him.

I flinched and reflexively tried to think of excuses before ruthlessly stomping down on that thought. I knew that things like this would happen eventually. I wanted my Dad back, and that meant having uncomfortable conversations.

"Ok, Dad." I said and sat down next to him. "What's on your mind?"

"A lot, actually…" He started, eying me uncertainly. "There's the fact that you're a cape now, there's your bullying at school and, well.." He voice trailed off, uncertain.

"The voices in my head?" I supplied, pointedly ignoring the murderous rage that rose at the mention of Winslow. Oh, when the time come, my vengeance upon that hell hole would be slow and brutal…

 _She grew op zo fasht._

Dad nodded wordlessly.

There was a very, very awkward bout of silence. Once again, neither of us actually knew how to approach any of these subjects. And they weren't even easy subjects to talk about. What do you want to walk about, Dad? The fact that you're daughter is now a part of a notoriously dangerous scene, her years long torture at the hands of her once best friend, or the fact that she might be insane?

Dad coughed, breaking the silence.

"Taylor, there's really not going to be anyway I can convince you to just stay out of all of this?" He asked, a barest quiver of desperation in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Dad. Just no." The very thought angered me. "I could do something! I could make this better! I can't sit by and do nothing, I can finally be a hero, dad!"

 _A hero? Ew! Why?_

 _Hoi, no keenkshemink in de femily!_

I ignored the banters from the ghosts, willing them back to the corner of my eyes as I focused on Dad. He was looking at me, pride and sadness in his eyes. It took him awhile, but he finally responded.

"It's what your mother would have done in your shoes." He stated. "It's what I would have done in your shoes. There's too much of us in you, kiddo. Way too much for me to handle." He smiled sadly and ruffled my hair, chuckling at my yelp.

"I just know that if I try to stop you, you'll find a way to do it anyway. I was saving this approach for either your first boyfriend or your first job, but…." He took a deep breath and smiled. "Taylor, just do whatever you feel is right, and remember that your old man will always be here."

I smiled and leaned against him, taking comfort in his warmth.

"I...Thanks, Dad. It'll going to be fine.." I whispered.

There was a few minutes of comfortable silence that was unfortunately broken when my construct returned, dragging a dismayed looking Benjamin by his neck.

"I can confirm." He said as Eve deposited unceremoniously at my feet. "She most likely consider me a squeaky toy."

I shrugged as Eve looked at me happily, a wide, toothy grin stretched across her face,

"I'm sure you two will get along just fine..." I replied, ignoring his squeaking as I laid my eyes on the construct. She crawled toward me, curious eyes locked onto mine. "I've named her Eve, by the way. Hello, Eve!"

She blinked curiously at the unfamiliar name, her mouth moved wordlessly, as if trying out the sound.

"Eve, I'll call you Eve. Do you like it?" She worked her mouth fruitlessly for a few seconds before suddenly nodded rapidly. I grinned back and patted her head.

"Guess she likes it." My Dad commented before turning to Ben. "Hey, Benjamin, you said you could tell us something about the cape scene?"

The man in question nodded as he crawled to his feet and dusted off his clothes. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved his phone and began typing into it.

"Well, I'm certain that the gangs are out of the question, so that left two options for you: the Wards or go independent. I'll recommend the Wards." He offered me the phone, on it was the a report into the mortality rate of affiliated capes, with plenty of graphs and charts involved that basically pointed to being independent was a bad idea. "There's some creative number jugglings in there, I think you can spot them." He informed me.

True enough, the information was delivered in such a way that the admittedly high death rate of rogues was massively overblown. On closer inspection, I started to notice several red flag.

"Best chance is to side with the Empire?" I asked, quirking an eyebrow. "I'm looking at you recruitment pitch, aren't I?"

Benjamin nodded, scratching his neck guiltily.

"Well, yeah… but some bullshit is better than no bullshit, right? I mean, Kaiser doesn't strike me as the type to out right lies to people, more like twisting the right words so you get the wrong conclusion. Real politician crap, you know."

I narrowed my eyes and went over the charts once again. Well, if the raw data I managed to gleam from these was accurate, then yes, it was rather dangerous to go alone. Even then…

"What would you suggest?" I asked him.

"The Ward's a safe bet." He answered with a shrug, and my Dad nodded alongside with him.

"Taylor, people say that all Wards go to Arcadia." My Dad chimed in, placing a hand on my shoulders. "We can get you out of that hell hole and into an actual school."

I nodded, closing my eyes as I consider the options. On one hand, I really didn't want to deal with any more teenage drama after the mess with Winslow. On the other hand, if I retreat into myself because something the trio did to me, if I allowed their actions to dictate my life, would that mean I let them win? The very thought made me wanted to split the planet in half.

On the third hand, and I suppose I do need a third hand, it would be quite convenient, if I approach the PRT now to ask for their help, to ask for their protection, would that mean bowing to them? That would mean me admitting that they were better than me, stronger than me. That would mean admitting that I needed their help.

Unthinkable. Inconceivable. Unacceptable. I would not, could not stand for such humiliation. I did not beg for help when I was weak and defenseless. I had no intention of starting now.

"I…" I intended to speak my mind to dad, but stopped myself. What would my Dad think? What kind of daughter would I be if I put him through even more misery, worrying over me? "I just don't know. I think I need more time."

Dad's face suddenly felt. He sighed sadly and nodded.

"I really want to see you in the Wards, Taylor." He whispered, looking at me. "Just promise me you'll keep yourself out of danger, sweetie?"

I nodded and hugged him.

"Don't worry, Dad, I'm not in any danger."

 _Yeah, but this city though…_ Cowlick girl muttered and flashed me an ominous grin. Said grin was quickly accompanied by dozens more as the ghosts smiled one by one. Those wide, toothy grins and intense green eyes were a strangely chilling sight to behold. I didn't realize then, but I was one of them, my own mouth and eyes contributed mirrored theirs.

Well, to be honest, I wouldn't call it danger. Just very, very intensive therapy.


	7. Breakthrough 1-7

There's good reasons why this took a month, I swear. I just need to find them first. Once again, big thanks to everyone who had helped me to make this possible. Special thanks to Samarkand, you glorious bastard!

* * *

I woke up to the sound of muffled shouting downstairs.

After a few fruitless minutes of groaning and pressing my face into the pillow, it became evident that the shouting wasn't going to stop any time soon. Grumpily, I climbed out of bed, stopping to do a quick mental once-over of myself.

Creating something to take care of my radiation poisoning wasn't difficult. There were spare chemical supplies from Eve's creation and Dad's medicine's cabinet supplemented what I lacked. It wasn't a permanent solution, instead only suppressing damage to my body until I can find the time to address it.

Satisfied that my body was not falling apart, I exited my room and walked downstairs for a healthy start to the day. Only to find Dad in the kitchen, using the 'I'm disappointed in you, young lady' pose that parents loved to pull whenever they caught their kids' hands in the cookie jar on a very sheepish and guilty looking Eve.

"Good morning Dad." I called to him, coincidentally distracting him from my poor construct. "What's the commotion?"

Dad sighed and turned to me, rubbing his nose all the way.

"Well, two things. First, your Eve found my beer pack and ate all of them. Not drank, she ate them, bottles and all. Then, she snuck up on me while I was frying bacons and helped herself to the pan. As in, she inhaled the bacon from the pan, the oil, and, well…" He gestured helplessly toward a frying pan with a large, jagged tear on the side. "...the pan."

I nodded and turned toward Eve, giving her my best stern and disappointed look, pulling mostly from my memory of Mom and Dad.

"Really now, young lady? That was very, very rude." I chided as Eve squeaked meekly and tried to make herself as small as possible.

The newborn construct squeaked and whimpered meekly as she tried to make herself as small as possible. It was equally disturbing and adorable how much she resembled a scolded puppy. I swore, her ears drooped and everything.

"You're not going to do that again, clear?"

Eve nodded rapidly, her long hair swinging up and down wildly. I gave her a pat on the head. Again, very disturbing animalistic behavior, also very adorable.

I turned back to Dad, who was giving me the oddest look, for some reason.

"You're spoiling her." He said weakly, vacantly.

"Well, it's nothing too big. You shouldn't be drinking anyway, and I can grab a sandwich outside. I'm thinking of taking her out, teaching her how humans work and everything." I responded, noticing Eve perking up and grinning at the mention of going out, her previous mood forgotten. Mentally, I reminded myself to make her a set of dentures before anything. Her rows of razor sharp, bone shredding teeth looked really cute in my opinion, but it could also make others feel uncomfortable, for some reason.

Dad's flat stare did not abate in the slightest. It took maybe a second or two before he answered.

"Right! You should teach your bio-engineered parahuman how normal people work. Of course!" He said slowly, as if he had trouble wrapping his head around the sentence or something. "Well, I can't give you a ride today, got some big talks over at the DWU, sorry hun."

"It's nothing, dad." I shook my head. "It's Monday, after all. I'll be fine. I got Eve!" I answered and waved goodbye as Dad walked out of the kitchen. Suddenly, I felt my jaw distended without my input as a massive yawn left my mouth. Excellent timing, all thing considered, Dad would tease me to death over it. Rubbing my eyes in vain, I made for our cabinet and started rumaging through the contents. "Dad! We got any coffee? I hadn't got much sleep last night."

"Hmm? No kiddo, sorry. I drank the last" Dad's voice came from the hall. After a second, he continued. "Check my room, dear. I think I got a box left there."

I frowned. Why would dad keep coffee in his room? Still, it's not like I lose anything by checking anyway. With a shrug, I left the kitchen and gestured for Eve to follow me to his room. The door wasn't locked, but the sight of the door stopped me.

God. When was the last time I saw the inside of his room?

Pushing those thoughts aside, I entered.

His room was rather messy, to be honest. It was functional, but it was obvious that not a lot of effort went into keeping it nice. The air smell a little stale. Not surprising, Dad spent all his time at home inside his room, looking through Union papers. When he's not on the TV, that is.

The first thing that caught my eyes was a big carton box on his bed, with a sign that said "For Taylor". Confused, I walked over and looked inside. It was filled with electronics, batteries, and microchips. On top of the stash was a piece of paper.

"Hi kiddo." It read. "Let me just get straight to it: I want you to have a phone. I know, I know. I've had problems with phones ever since your mother. I still do, if I must be honest. However, if my daughter's going out there punching nazi, I want to be able to keep in touch with her, clear?

I think fathers are supposed to splash out a little on their daughters' phones so I've spent last night looking through the internet. They said tinkers like to design their own equipments, and I just happen to have some old phones in my room. There's also some broken remotes and even a pair of walkies talkies. I just think you'd want to make your own phone. I left some money at the bottom in case there's something missing.

Just keep it subtle, ok? Go easy on the death ray."

Old phones parts? I recognized some brand new hardwares in here. Top of the lines. How did he…?

Did he went out last night and got them for me? The night before that?

I blinked, suddenly feeling a burn in my eyes and nose as my vision blurred. Amongst the storm of emotions that rose within me as I read the note, I felt rage.

Did Dad think he could just drop something like this on me and dodge out before I could confront him on it? Hell no!

"Eve!" I shouted. "Fetch Dad!"

It was like a switch was flipped in my construct's mind. She suddenly perked up and let out an inhuman howl before leaping through the (thankfully open) window down onto the street below.

"Don't hurt anyone unless I say so!" I called after her before rushing downstair and hopping on my bike.

As I left the house, I could see Eve sprinting away in the distance. She was on all four, her movements an odd combination of canine and human that somehow worked. I paddled furiously after her trail, silently thanking the fact that it was still too early for any potential witnesses. I needed to work on my subtleties.

It took me a few minutes before she slowed down noticeably. I was afraid she had lost scent of him before she suddenly coiled and pounced, her form sailing through the air and came down on a very familiar looking car. In a blink, she gripped onto the tail and heaved, effortlessly lifting the drive wheels off the ground. What momentum the car did have, she must have killed it the moment she took hold.

I jumped off the bike and rushed for the driver door. I pulled it open, noting with slight annoyance that Dad's didn't lock the door, and jumped into his arms.

"Wha? Taylor?" He asked dumbly. Maybe I should have give him some time to process this, but time was of the essence.

"Thanks Dad." I whispered, still holding onto him. "I love you too."

"Uhh...It's nothing?" He answered, looking a little shell shocked.

It might have been a tad excessive, yes.

I giggled, and gave him one last squeeze before letting go.

"Don't do that in the future. If you're going to do something nice for me, I want you to be there so I can properly express my gratitude, clear?" I said with the best lecturing tone I could muster.

"Yes, ma'-Taylor?" Dad sounded really confused for some reason. It's probably Eve lifting his car. I waved at the girl, signalling for her to drop the wheels back down on the room.

"Have a great day at work, Dad. I love you."

"Uh...you too?" He said. I grinned and waved him farewell. He waved back, closed the door, and drove off.

Still smiling over my most effective family bonding tactic, I turned to Eve.

"Well, what do you say we go into the city and have a good time today?" I asked, and she chirped happily.

It was a good day.

* * *

"Thanks for your purchases. Have a nice day!" The cashier said, her face set into an ironclad visage of serene cheerfulness. Still, I could spot the cracks in the facade. Occasionally, she would glance over my shoulder, her lip twitched into an upward curl in a fashion that might not be entirely professional.

Behind me, Eve was prancing in circles, happily showing her new headgear off to the world. It was a fairly modest looking top hat with a brass band wrapped around it. Nothing unusual unless you count the seven foot-long feathers attached to it, each one a different shade of the rainbow as well as the fist-sized piece of crystal glass decorating the front. Apparently, it got a suction cup on the inside or something, because Eve somehow got it to sit at a jaunty angle.

A nice hat, if you ask me...

 _Yesss!_

...but a little too flamboyant, not really for me.

 _Noooooo!_

Ignoring the inane chatterings in my head (I was getting good at that), I grabbed my purchases from the woman behind the counter and withdrew from them a large, faded jacket with high collar. I'd forced my construct into wearing a medical face mask until now, mostly because I know people can find her double rows of steel shredding teeth to be disturbing. Personally, I didn't agree. I thought they were adorable, but I guess a hero should be considerate of others.

The problem though? The medical mask didn't go with her! She needed lab coats and goggles, as well as either a bald head or those medicine head-things. Even then, Eve was still too feral and animalistic to pull off that look! She needed… I didn't know, not that.

 _Heavy iron collar, at least an inch thick, with padlock. Topless with fur loincloth, or nude. Tribal body paints._

Yes! That!

A few second later, the rest of my brain caught up, and my face turned into a tomato.

No! Not that!

Before the decidedly perverts living in my head could make anymore helpful suggestion, I shoved them all aside and returned to the real world. Well, I know that the medical mask was a bust, and the jacket could conceal her lower face pretty effectively. Specific aesthetics had to wait for now, and loyal pet was definitely not an option.

"Although…" My traitorous mind started musing out loud. "The collar did sound-No. Whose adolescent slave-girl fantasy are we indulging, anyway?"

 _Yours, apparently._

And, like all trains of thoughts that involved the wisdom of the voices, this one was quickly shut down.

Eve accepted the new article of clothing graciously and quickly discarded her mask, no doubt feeling stuffy from wearing for so long. It wasn't really intentional, but her clothes did go together on some level. She got a Victorian feel to her, like some kind of overly flamboyant bandit you would meet in 18th century Europe.

Uh, which 18th century Europe was that again? Nevermind.

"Well, that's everything." I said to Eve as we exited the fashion boutique. "You want to go home?"

My answer came in the form of Eve skipping off in pursuit of a hotdog cart. Right, so much for that. Chuckling to myself at the odd looks she attracted, I followed close behind, keeping a close eye on her.

Not that I thought that was necessary. Eve was extremely well-behaved today. Sure, she bit a lamppost, sniffed a few people, and occasionally jumped around on all four, but all in all, she was a good girl. I guess that mean she deserved some fun.

I took Eve Downtown first, showing her the high-rises of the medical and electronics corporations that had moved in after the death of Brockton Bay's shipping. Then, I took her to the Boardwalk and let her see the nice side of the city; the attractions, restaurants, mails, and other pretty things that really didn't do anything in my opinion.

Much to my amusement. Eve was, well, adorably hyperactive was the right word, I believe. I mean, I knew that she was literally nuclear-powered, but there was something so nice about my little bouncing bundle of joy and innocence, jumping from one thing that caught her eyes to the next; the only splotch of color in a grey world.

That thought made me frowned. I had never notice it until now, but it was right there, staring at me: Brockton Bay was grey. Some sections of of the city hid it better than others. Still, an air of depression, of hopelessness, encompassed the city. Like a worm gnawing on an old apple.

It made me think. And when I think, the ghosts came.

 _Hyu see it, yah? De zity is dyin'_ I turned to look at the speaker, and almost tripped over myself. He looked like a deranged Merlin, with long beard that went past his chest and a head of puffy brown hair. His clothes even bore similarities to a wizard's garbs, if you substitute the skirt for pants.

I nodded, but made no response. I would fix this. I knew I could.

 _Ah! But do hyu know de zolution? Iz more den de gankz, see? Dey iz symptoms. Puz on infected voundz._

Then what do I need to do?

 _De zity need a ziztem! To prevent infection, hyu must close de vounds... vell, hyu ken alzo replace ze limb vith better alternatives, vut zat iz gettink ahead of hyuself._

Close the wound, huh?

 _Yah! Diz...PRT...they haf failed dere duty. They could not fight ze zymptoms, let alone ze causez. Vut hyu? hyu ken do beeter!_

Could...could I? What could I do? What must I do? I couldn't just...take over the city and run things my way, could I?

Could I?

No, I could not. The city was dying, some parts of its were just more aware of this than others. It was wrapped up in grey, ready for the funeral. I knew I couldn't fix Brockton Bay, and yet…

Sometime, it's better to melt a broken blade down and forge a new one. Sometime, it's better to let someone die, so that I may bring them back; stronger, better.

It seemed that whenever my mind went off on these tangents, my legs would go on autopilot and took me to whatever the felt like they in the moment. I sighed, forcibly wrenching myself back to reality and tried to see if I could recognize where I was, It would be horribly embarrassing if I managed to get lost when I was supposed to be the guide.

I was on a waterfront, some kind of old harbour that got repurposed into yet another tourist trap. I knew this place, not from personal experience, but made sure Dad filled me in on that well enough, whether I wanted or not: The old terminal, which meant…

True enough, no more than a hundred feet from me, where a tourist group had gathered, was the old ferry. An ancient husk of rusted and rotting metal, she sat in the bay, bobbing gently in the water. I was amazed that she could even float at all after so long.

The ferry, it was once the pride of Brockton Bay as a whole and the Dockworkers in particular, Dad had always said. It was vital for commute within the city, and provided work for thousands. Now, after it had become clear that the city could no longer keep it going, it got retired to the terminal, reduced to a curiosity for tourists.

I didn't know what they were striving for with the ferry's image, but when I looked upon her now, I saw a sad, decaying corpse of an old whale, beached and rotting, put on display to draw pocket change, like a circus' freak show.

I looked around me, paying close attention to the look upon the tourists' faces. There was no look of awe or inspiration, only idle curiosity, and pity.

Pity. That was the appropriate response. The ferry was a beautiful thing once, a paragon of naval transportation of its time, a vital transit link. Now, it's a monument to false fame and prosperity long gone, a desperate plea for tourists to come and throw away their money. Nothing more than a beggar dressed up in pretty clothes. There was nothing to be proud of this old thing.

Now, give me enough time, and I could restore it to its former glory, but what's the point? It was so long gone that repairing it would be excessively difficult. Instead, I could melt it down, take it apart and build something infinitely greater. Bigger, faster, tougher, more laser...

"Voices, are you trying to tell me something?" I whispered, keeping it low enough that no one should put me in the nice, padded room any time soon. I didn't receive any answer, only the sound of smug laughter echoing in my skull.

"Whatever you're planning, I'm not going to break and remake Brockton Bay in my image. I'm a hero, and I'm going to be a good, rule-abiding girl, like Eve. RIght, Eve?" I asked, confident that my creation would back me up.

Silence.

Where the fuck was Eve?

I looked, closed my eyes, opened them, and looked again. Nothing changed.

Eve was gone.

Well, I guess I did kind of ask for it.

Luckily enough, following her tracks wasn't very difficult, probably because she was a hyperactive girl wearing a top hat with rainbow-colored feathers. It was where the tourists had pointed me toward that greatly worried me: Eve was seen heading into the old Docks, the ugly side of the city, where couples of corpses turn up every day and gunshots were a part of the background noises.

My search slowed down when I entered the dock proper, mostly because the amount of people willing to answer questions as opposed to doing something they would most certainly regret in the morning started to rapidly approach zero.

It took me maybe half an hour before I stumbled upon my first clue: Eve's top hat, hanging off the arm of an old, abandoned forklift, one of the many that littered this old industrial wasteland.

That's...bad. Eve loved her hat. Why would she part with it? I walked over and picked it up, inspecting the headgear. There were signs of damage, the most obvious was a circular hole, like something caused by a bullet.

That's really bad.

This fruitless search was really getting onto my nerves. My construct had ran off and probably gotten herself into some kind of danger, and this part of town was being really, really uncooperative in assisting me with my search.

And then, it occurred to me that it would be easier to search for her if I just remove all geological features from this area...

At that very second, a nearby crane gave a hideous creak and crumbled in on itself. A split moment later, a white-clad form shot out from resulting wreckage and screamed something incoherent before rocketing back toward the earth.

I decided to take that as proof that God did not wish to draw the ire of Taylor Hebert and decided to give me a pointer and moved on.

Following Eve's trail wasn't that hard once I knew where to look, especially when the trail in question involved grown men dressed in Christmas-y, red and green colors lying broken on the ground, moaning incessantly. It probably had something to do with the fact that each of them sported dislocated joints on all of their limbs.

I would have taken a few seconds to admire the brutal mercy, but I had other things on my mind.

"You little bitch!" Glory Girl's being a potty mouth wasn't one of them, but the fact that I arrived to find her chasing Eve through the dock, brandishing an eleven-foot pole was.

The dock, it was never in a great state to being with, but right now, it looked like a war just broke out. Dozen of bodies, all in that red and green, definitely gang now-that-I've-thought-about-it, color, lie broken on the ground. There was a pair of sedans and a van lied upturned, belching smoke. Most worryingly of all, a motor boat had somehow left its watery confine and found a new home atop a nearby roof, its propeller still spun wildly in the air..

Yeah, and my Eve was fighting Glory Girl. The Alexandria package looked like she had seen better days. Her dress was ripped and stained, there were cuts and bruises visible on her, and her signature crown was gone.

Did Eve do that to goddamn Glory Girl? I was not sure whether I should be proud or terrified. Both? Yeah, that. Both

Ducking behind a crumbling wall, I considered my options. As much as the thought of letting my creation duke it out with one of the biggest heroes in the city excited me, I didn't really think "mortal combat with Glory Girl" was a good debut for a hero. So, I had to put a stop to this somehow.

I peeked over the wall, silently assessing the situation. Somehow, miraculously enough, Eve's high collar jacket still provided adequate protection for her face, having remained relatively whole. I knew she would stand down at my words, but I don't want to out myself before I actually started on heroics. Or ever, really.

Behind me, something exploded, and Glory Girl started tossing around really, really fluent sailor speak. Right, no time to waste.

I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my face, followed by putting on a pair of welding goggles that I'd bought. That was the best I had. Now, time to stop this before these children do something they would regret.

"Hey!" I shouted, popping out from behind my cover just as Eve was bearing down on Glory Girl with the motorboat. My voice was apparently enough to force them to cease their fight and turned to look at me.

"You!" I shouted, pointing toward Eve and opened my mouth to issue a command before snapping it shut. I need to think carefully, and not call her by her name. "Pet, to me."

Pet? Pet!

 _Eeyup!_

Pet.

 _Yep. Pet._

With titanic effort, I managed to not strangle myself then and there. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it depends, Eve understood and immediately disengaged from Glory Girl to crawl up to my feet and knelt there. Evidently, she noticed my ire and started making plaintive sounds at the back of her throat.

Luckily, the local heroine saved me from any further communication with the crazy voices by dropping out of the sky no more than five feet away from my face, her teeth gritted and her eyes blazing with fury.

"Pet? Really? You have five seconds to explain everything before I stomp you both flat." She glowered, and I could feel power practically radiating from her.

Actually, she was actually radiating...something, trying to bend me, trying to subjugate me. That's…

 _Ah leedle too fazt, iv hyu ask me. See, hyu gotta take dem out fer sem goot, konquerink, slauterink time 'fore hyu bust out ze hideous crimes againzt humanity._

Aye, but she is pretty, and quite bold, too. I like her. Maybe we-

And with that, I shut them all off and silently thanked my jacket for hiding my blush. At my side, Eve made little mewling sounds. Before I could discern any meaning, shot off toward the capsized van and tore off the doors. Its content spilled out, dozens of wooden crates that smashed open against the concrete.

Guns. The van was filled with guns. Not just any ordinary peashooter. It was packed to the brim with assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, and even a couple of rocket launchers.

"Huh…" Glory Girl said eloquently, looking a little deflated, as Eve leapt off from the van and ran toward us, stopping at my feet and looked up to me expectantly.

"I think what she's trying to say is that she came across a gun trafficking deal and decided to do a little vigilante work. You should have scoped it out first before attacking my girl, miss." I said, chuckling at how New Wave's poster girl was fidgeting and glancing around, occasionally scratching her elbows and neck like a scolded child. Eve was practically radiating smugness.

"Ye..ah, uhm.. heh, no hard feelings?" The blonde offered with a hopeful look in her eyes that made it really, really hard to be angry. With a sigh, I gave a wordless nod and turned my attention back to my construct.

"As for you." I turned to Eve, my hands folded and eyes glaring."I appreciate your initiative, but I don't want to see you run off guns blazing on your own, or I'll stop ignoring leash law, clear?" I scolded. My construct shrank into herself and made little high-pitched squeaking sounds.

I rolled my eyes and pressed Eve's top hat back on her head. She immediately squealed and started fussing over it, having apparently already forgot the current situation.

Still grinning at her antics, I turned back toward the white-clad heroine and offered a hand toward her.

"So, uh… water under the bridge?" I asked, a little uncertain as to how to salvage this. Luckily, Glory Girl caught on to my attempt and took my outstretched hand with a smile.

"Sure! Just don't tell anyone about this, please? My mom and sister are going to give me hell over this," She pleaded hopefully.

Glory Girl just begged me to not tattle on her.

I nodded stupidly, still a little dazed and confused as to the chain of events that had lead to this. Glory Girl responded with a big grin. She looked like a kid who just got let off the hook for free, if you ask me.

"So, new capes, huh? Got any plan for the near future?" She asked. Suddenly, I was very, very conscious of her pin-up model figure. Soon, I realized that blood was rushing to my face and my mind was wandering again.

 _Make her hyu! Make her hyu! Firzt ledee ov ze zereglio!_

Satyricus, show some restraint, at least.

Yah! ze leether vun! Vith ze studs!

Right, blaming that on the voices.

"No, not really." I answered, desperately hoping that she didn't have secret mind-reading powers. "I want to be a hero, but I'm also not sure on the how yet."

Glory Girl smiled and slapped me on the back. The force sent me stumbling. Judging from the shit eating grin on her face, it was intentional.

"Well, you've already done good, busting this deal. Let me give you some advices that everyone insisted on pounding into my head: Try to limit on the, well…" She shrugged and gestured at the gang members all around us. "That. People always give me a lot of flak for, ehem, 'excessive force'. The PRT doesn't like it."

"Right, thanks." I nodded, silently contemplating on that as I made several adjustments to future operations. No excessive force.

That didn't count mental trauma, right?

Glory Girl didn't give me any time to think on that. She was already in my face somehow, grin still wide.

"So, lemme ask something: pet?"

I squeaked and felt even more blood rushed to my face.

"Its…. it's complicated!" I managed to force out. There had to be a way to explain my current predicament, right?

"Uuh...huuhh…" The heroine squinted. She circled me, looking me up and down.. "I'm not going to ask right now, but if it turns out you're some kind of freaky, Heartbreaker knock-off, I'm going to make sure you feel it in the morning."

 _Oooh darlink! Sure hyu vill..._

Well, at least somebody got a laugh out of this.

Luckily enough for everyone involved, the blonde heroine decided to drop the matter for the time being. The following period of peace and grace was a godsend for me. I really needed a timeout to get my emotions sorted before I started doing something the East Coast would regret.

Seriously! Glory Girl just compared me to Heartbreaker! How dare she? Heartbreaker was an unimaginative, uninspired hack. Give me his power and I would be well on my way to global d-Stop. Heroic thoughts, Taylor. Heroic thoughts.

"Hey, you want to do something fun?" Glory Girl, being the beautiful, knight in shining armor that she was, rescued me from my brain. "Backup won't be here for another thirty minutes at best. Let's do something fun!" She finished with a inappropriately hopeful look, I noticed Eve perking up and mirrored her expression perfectly.

It was a honest to god social invitation! One of the biggest heroes of Brockton Bay wanted to 'do something fun' with me! She wanted to have fun with me!

 _...Too easy. I have standards._

"We can interrogate the ring leader for details on the deal?" I blurted out lamely and immediately regretted the words that came out of my mouth. Right, let's bond over torture! Great fucking job.

 _What's wrong with torture?_

Cultural thing, probably.

 _Ah!_

Glory Girl, however, started cackling, of all things.

I liked her cackle. It sounded nice. I was a little jealous, to be honest. Maybe I could get her to show me?

"Oh, I like you already! C'mon, my sister compiled and forced me to memorize a list of acceptable field interrogation techniques that wouldn't land me in trouble. Let's make these scumbags regret their poor choices in life, shall we?"

And thus, me and Glory Girl bonded over torture.

It was great. We had a good day.


	8. Breakthrough 1-8

That is not dead which can eternal lies. Stranger eons death may die.

I'm not dead. Prometheus isn't dead. However, if either were, I would have excuses.

This chapter got rewritten maybe a dozen time at least, all were hideous, before this was made, and I'm still not happy with it. But I'm putting it up because the alternative is another year in dormant.

My apologies to all my readers and betas. Sincerest thanks to Samarkand for pulling me through.

A special note to those who read my story on fanfiction dot net: Holy shit everything's fucked up! I'll need to do massive reformatting to fix all of my all chapters. Damnit how come I never noticed this?

In the meantime, if you're looking for a more polished product, I suggest you visit the Spacebattle or Sufficient Velocity version.

* * *

6th of December, 2010.

"Well, that was unhelpful." I took a moment to savour how hope drained from my current quarry's face as his legs quivered like twigs.

"Please!" He pled. "That's all I know! I don't know what you want!"

Inwardly, I shrugged. It's true that he had told us plenty about the smuggling ring that brought these weapons into ABB's hands. No important names, but definitely enough leads for an investigation. No, my problem was that these were only leads, and that meant the best we could do with them is submit them for review by the either the PRT or the FBI, depending on the involvement of parahumans. Most likely the PRT. In other words, it was kinda anti-climatic.

Outwardly, I twisted my lips into a predatory grin. The effect was somewhat diminished by my own mask, but I knew the way my eyes crinkled and the cloth mask shifted was indication enough. For him, the implied grin carried promises.

The smuggler yelped, his legs went through a series of fascinating motions as his instinct to flee warred with command from his brain telling himself to stay put. Finally, one leg tripped over the other and he was sent sprawling on the ground. He tried to say something, most likely to beg for mercy, but the sound was hardly intelligible.

Ah, the smell of fresh terror.

Alright, so I was being mean, I'll admit that. Still, before me was someone who would have knowingly put military grade firearms in ABB hands, the people whose signature trade were forced prostitution and human trafficking. For some reason, I just didn't feel that bad.

Glory Girl giggled as she swooped down from her perch atop the overturned van and snatched him up like a bird of prey. With speed born of experience, she had his arms in a zip tie before dropping him back to the ground. Eve quickly seized his collar in her mouth and dragged him off toward the others.

"That, was inspired!" The blonde concluded as she landed next to me. "Disturbing, but also inspired! And I was supposed to be teaching here. Don't tell me, you're some kind of interrogation Thinker?"

I shook my head. "No. I'll talk about it at the PRT. I assume they are coming?"

"Well, that is their protocol." She stretched out the last word. There wasn't any real disdain in her voice, but a whole lot of mirth nonetheless. "They'll send someone from the Protectorate out to talk with you."

I nodded, my eyes went back to the pile of bound smugglers where Eve was keeping vigil. "Wouldn't they be annoyed with us roughing them up? I mean, more than the whole 'all joints dislocated' thing."

Glory Girl shrugged. "Kinda? I mean, nobody care if random thugs got their teeth kicked in by heroically inclined capes. They usually draw the line at excessive maiming and killing though."

 _Vhot? Dot'z crazy!_

"I guess so."

"Oh, what are you fretting about? There's not even a spot of purple!" The blonde laughed. "Just say I put you up to it, okay? I need the good rep."

"Do you do this a lot?" I distinctly remember Assault calling her collateral damage barbie in one of his PHO posts, a sentiment shared by many others. "Don't you get into trouble for it?"

"Not as much as the memes make it out, but yes." She chuckled "And yes. But enough of that! If what you did isn't a power, can you show me the thing you did with your fingers? "

"Sure! But you have to show me the-" The reply died on my tongue as her words finished going through my head. My mouth worked futilely, producing only choking sounds. My cheeks felt as if I could fry eggs on them. Glory Girl's smile remained so innocent even as it stretched by half an inch, she might as well had a halo over her crown. The bitch.

Rescue came in the form of a PRT van pulling up. Its back door swung opened, and out came half a dozen troopers in their signature gears. With efficiency commonly reserved for machines, they spread out and converged on us. They movements carried no hostility, but I could tell they were cautious. A little on edge. Understandable, since they are dealing with unknown capes. Frankly, I would be offended if they weren't.

Let rephrase that, I would be offended if the law enforcement officers didn't consider me a threat.

 _I like that! Very innovative!_

Huh? Like what?

 _Their uniforms, darling. So… mysterious! Humanity… nein, life hidden away, leaving but identical silhouettes. Modern spin on the Black Knight concept, substituting nobility for professionalism. And those reflective helms! Red fire! Darling, you must do this for your legion of doom._

"I'm not gonna steal the PRT uniform for a legion of doom!" I hissed under my breath, ignoring the look Glory Girl tossed at me. I hadn't notice it before, but now that they've mentioned it, the PRT combat gear was certainly intimidating. If I didn't know any better would say they looked like something an evil megacorp would field against the oppressed mass in those sci-fi flicks.

 _Oh yes… Those colors are awfully drab. Perhaps we can spice it up with brighter tones. White on gold, perhaps? That was the heroic fashion._

 _Pah! No individuality at all. Dull, I tell you._

 _Oh please! When I alive, faceless goons were so in vogue in the Jade Empire._

 _So, a hundred years before I was born, grandma?_

 _You wouldn't know fashion if it slap your balls._

 _Ladies, you're both beautiful! However, I think with Taylor's situations, clanks are the way forward._

 _Hah, Hy vill take any keeler pladypus over any tin kans. Lemme tell hyu dot time hy conquered an kontinent vith an army ov dem. Iz vas like dis, see-_

 _No, uncle Vlad. We don't have time to talk about your lord and saviour, Biology._

A motorcycle's roar mercifully drown out their bickering, buying me the few seconds of peace it took for me to realise that there was a motorcycle heading here. For a second, my heart leapt into my throat and squee'd into my brain. The most well known motorcycle rider in the city was Arms-fucking-master himself! Hailed was one of the greatest Tinkers, no, heroes, of our time. He was the face and leader of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay. I literally had his face on my underwear when I was young. He was that big!

 _Vhat?_

 _I agree, darling. What?_

However, now that I had listened more closely, it didn't sound like Armsmaster's bike. His was silent. Smooth as silk, they say. Probably didn't even use an internal combustion engine. So, not Armmaster then. A small mercy, I'm not sure I could muster the presence of mind to talk to someone whose face was on my undies.

 _Vhat._

I watched as the bike pulled up, my eyes widened as the rider's shape clicked. She was not Armsmaster, obviously. However, she also happened to be Miss MIlitia, one of the original Ward and now a prominent member of the Protectorate. A flag-wearing, military themed cape, her power allowed her to basically pull man-made weapons out of the air.

I watched as the Protectorate heroine dismounted and removed her helmet. Her bandana shifted in what I suspected was a smile as she laid her eyes on us.

"I am Miss Militia." she introduced. A gloved hand extended toward me, palm opened. "You are one of the independent pair who stopped this operation, yes?"

"Uhh…" I replied eloquently. My head was on highest throttle, pulling upon a hundred lifetimes of warmongering, tyranny, and all around world-moving. Experience were then fed through the terrible engine that was my mind, where physics and universal constants feared to tread, to produce countless courses of actions. Much of which were dismissed on ground of excessive explosions and lasers, but of the reasonable ones, the best was chosen.

I shook her hands. Step one completed.

"Uhh…yuh… " Drat. Abort. Retry. "Well, not me specifically. My partner went off on her own. I just followed her.".

The older heroine nodded. "can I talk to her?"

"Well, I guess. She can be a handful though… " I gestured for Miss Militia to follow me.

Eve was where I assigned her, sprawling atop a broken truck, keeping watch over the gaggle of bound and gagged criminals and their illegal cargo. Her rainbow feathers were visible from afar. Seeing my approach, she let out a delighted sound and descended, smooth and feline as always.

Her gait slowed as she noticed the PRT personnels. Her nosed turned to the air, taking a few cautious sniffs before she turned back to us. Golden eyes fell on Miss Militia's approaching form.

Everything went wrong.

I distinctly remember my first construct letting out a squeal as her body sailed through the air like a black-clad, feather tipped ballistic missile on a collision course for one of Brockton Bay's biggest heroes.

There was a flash of green followed by a shotgun roaring thrice in succession. Eve came sailing past my vision once again, her coat torn. Glory Girl, Miss Militia, and one of the black armored trooper each shouted something simultaneously, and then everything became very, very white.

* * *

Miss MIlitia's office was not what I expected. Mostly, it was because I expected a prison cell. However, had I known beforehand that I was not getting arrested, it still wasn't what I expected from a famous hero's office. If anything, it looked like a cleaner, more modern version of my Dad's office from what few memories I had of sneaking in there with the addition of a tinkertech computer and an American flag hanging from one wall.

The parhuman in question sat behind her office desk while myself and Glory Girl occupied two smaller chair opposite to her. Eve neglected her own seat in favor of a spot at my feet.

No one said a word.

"So!" was Glory Girl's ice breaker.

Miss Militia gave her A Look. The kind that both carried so much and so little meaning in them. Their ultimate design a mystery only their makers were privy to, leaving their recipient to conjure and fill in their own meaning. Right now, I was assigning a giant question mark to it.

"Listen, I'm very sorry for what she did. I'm certain she didn't mean to cause anyone harm." I tried, one hand absentmindedly scratching Eve's head from where she sat unmoving at my feet.

After the second accidental altercation with the city's heroic populations, she had gotten a little sulky. Much like everything else she did, it was adorable. She just sat crossed legs, head ducked and hair falling over her face like a curtain. All the while, she kept making this sound. I imagined, had her throat not occupied with a plasma lance, it would came out as childish grumbling. Instead, what came out was like an orchestra of strangled kittens.

The Protectorate hero turned to look at her, and her face faltered slightly before setting again. She spoke. "Miss, while do I think foaming both of you was excessive, I insist on receiving a little context here."

I sucked in a breath at the question. That I could do. The transit was enough for me to come up with a cover story. All I needed to do now was lie to a heroine trying to do her work.

"...Yes. This, she, is my fault." I started, calling on borrowed experience to fabricate discomfort in my voice, which wasn't even that necessary. "I am a biotinker, and I was desperate."

Miss Militia's face softened and Glory Girl winced, both suddenly looked rather uncomfortable. Good, the voices could tell they're buying it. Focus, Taylor. First you believe the lie, become the lie, then you tell your truth.

Heterodynes were not subtle. It was a fact, much like the sun is hot and planets are roughly spherical. Many saw this refusal to play the game as inability to play the game, and paid dearly. One simply did not become charismatic warlords without knowing how to deceive and obfuscate, even in the face of lie discerning apparati.

"They… they were…" I choked, breath in, and stiffened. "They were going to kill me. I needed to do something. She was there. She was going to die. I could see that even without my power; she was in all were, just… taken apart. Harvested! "

It felt wrong to do this, to conjure emotions and put them on like new clothes. But I what else would I do? Introduce myself as a living hive of mad tinkers from Earth-Gimel compelled to conquer and dispoil and Eve as a reanimated patchwork, or simply refuse to answer questions after assaulting a prolific heroine before half a dozen witnesses? If I was lucky, they would Birdcage me and forget about the crazy girl. This was the best course of action.

Miss Militia's face softened entirely, leaving only concern. Meanwhile, Glory Girl fidgeted in her seat, hands balling and relaxing. She seemed ready to bust through a few walls right now.

"I put her back together. Stronger. I needed..." Choke, trail off. "I couldn't save everything. Her brain was already damaged…"

 _You're a natural! Keep going, sweetheart._

"She's childlike now. Animalistic. Lost." I needed a shower. "I did everything I could, but it wasn't enough. I couldn't save her in full, but she saved me. The way she is… I'm responsible for her. That's the least I could do."

Miss Militia sighed, one hand rubbing the ridge of her nose. "I'm sorry, miss. I shouldn't have."

"You did nothing wrong." I did.

Glory Girl was so silent, so subdued.

I needed a shower.

 _Natu~ral!_

Miss Militia's eyes was on Eve. After a moment, she left her seat and came kneel down next to her. The later watched with one eye peeking between ebony strands.

"I'm sorry I shot you." Eve responded with a half-hearted growl. "But you scared me! You shouldn't do that to strangers, understand? "

Eve was silent for a moment before he mouth worked various whines, chirps and growls in a futile effort at speech. Finally, she huffed and started waving her handsaround with considerably less enthusiasm.

"Writing? You...wanted my autograph?" He older heroine cracked at the last word. Eve chirped a sully affirmative, and Miss Militia reached for a pen. "Where do you want it?"

The construct removed her hat and, with much trepidation, offered it to Miss Militia. Dumbstruck, she dutifully written her name on the cloth band adorning the headgear before handing it back. Eve took the hat, hand gingerly gliding over the new addition.

I watched in fascination as energy practically flooded back into her. Her face suddenly lit by delight much like a skyline light up after an outage. Her pout quivered before flipping into a massive grin. In a burst of speed too fast for anyone to react and a squeal of joy, she seized the Protectorate hero in a vice grip and squeezed, bringing her a full foot off the ground and her neck into optimal nuzzling position.

I was the one of the two humans alive who had the honor of seeing Miss Militia receiving receiving affection bear style.

"Air! Can't… can't breath!"

On cue, Eve gently set the heroine down before retreating into the corner to fuss over the new addition to her hat.

I watched as the first Ward stumbled back and sunk into her chair, eyes glued onto my construct. "That was…. "

"Something?" I offered.

"Something."

Without warning, the hero snorted. Her lips quirked upward as little giggles escaped them.

"Hey! You know what, she didn't ask for my autograph!" Glory Girl shouted, sounding genuinely hurt. "What does Miss Militia has that I don't?"

Miss Militia buried her head into her hands. The giggling intensified. Glory Girl pouted, her arms crossed like the very picture of a petulant child It went on for a while until the older heroine finally composed enough to push herself up, wiping away tears in the process.

"I'm sorry, I really should do my job." she had force professionalism back to her form, but mirth still glinted in those eyes. "Have you came up with names?"

 _God!_

I pointedly ignored that. "No, not really."

 _De Lord? Highezt of High? Mornink Star?_

 _It's The Heterodyne, we can't sell ourselves short._

I shook my head, dispelling their suggestions. I doubted they could come up with names that doesn't raise PRT eyebrows. The various iterations on the family's mantle was the the closest it got, and that was mostly because due to lack of context.

No, I didn't think I was ready for that title, knowing what it meant. I didn't think they would be fine with me using it for heroics.

 _Sweetheart, we're in your head. I know you're going to do the name justice regardless._

That's not reassuring.

 _Personally, I try to be open-minded and supportive of the kids, regardless of their… disabilities. When my Bill and Barry said they wanted to get into that, I gave them_ _the best heroic backstory I could._

That's more reassuring. I guess.

"Well, I'll just mark it down as Unknown" Miss Militia said. "Are you under eighteen?"

"Yes, ma'am.."

"The Wards program can offer you support and guidance for you and your partner." She begun, something I half-suspected was rehearsed and delivered times and again. "Have you considered joining us?"

"I am thinking it over. It's…" The decision was actually not as clear cut as I had thought. Joining them would be putting chains on my neck, and while I rankled at the thought of anyone dictating me, some of the voices welcomed it. They wanted the challenge, the sweet pleasure of seeing them try to control me, to hold me back.

"It's complicated."

 _Ve hunger in earnezt fer dat vich ve kannot konsume!_

The older cape nodded stiffly "I understand. I'll file you in as independent heroes for now. Please think carefully about it. We'll be here for you when you need us."

Liar. I felt a sudden urge to scream that, to ask where were they when I needed them. I forced it down. It was irrational, I knew that much. Irrational to think the PRT, to think anyone could intervene in all injustices. Cases like mine were entirely outside their jurisdiction. They were formed to combat parahuman crimes, not teenager assholeries.

The system's imperfection was never in question, but the solution.

I nodded.

The heroine wrote something in a sheet before pressing a stamp on it and handed it to me. "On your way out, take this paper to the bounty office. You can find it on the map at the lift. "

I gingerly took the offered sheet. My eyes swept over it, and suddenly I felt a lump in my throat. My voice came out a squeak. "Seven thousands? That's… that's"

More money than I ever though I would ever hold in my hand.

"Since we have the words of Glory Girl, myself, a few residents, and the criminals themselves vouching for your partner's contribution, you've been fast-tracked through bounty verification. The number in this case in proportionate to the value of contrabands seized, and we captured a lot of weapons today. You did good." She explained, the last three words almost had me floating off the chair. "Which bring us to the next matter, what do you want us to tell the public?"

"What do you mean?" Just tell the truth, right? Just said that Eve went in and bust the deal. What else was there to say?

"Normally, either Lung or Oni Lee would oversee such vital operation." She started. "Today, both were tied up due to aggression in their territory. While it's fortunate that you could take advantage of this to strike, it mean they will be looking for retribution. If you want, we will publicly attribute this to Glory Girl and keep you away from their attention."

Now, that was a much easier choice.

"No." Miss Militia smile curdled a little. Glory Girl turned to regard me, no doubt surprised by the sheer certainty and alacrity of my reply. "I… I refuse to be afraid. My construct did a good thing for the people of this city; she deserves a hero's cognition. I will not be bullied into hiding. Tell them the truth: tell them there are new parahumans on their side. I will not, cannot, allow fear of what may come to deprive people of a speck of hope for a better tomorrow."

Ruptured silence. Time for the cinch.

"I admire you. Both of you." My eyes lingered on Miss Militia before roaming over to Glory Girl. "I admire Alexandria and Armsmaster and Dragon and all those who dare to take a stand. If each morning you can wake up, go out there to fight and give hope without fear, so can I."

Miss Militia's lips was a thin line when I was done. There was a glimmer in her eyes. Pride mingled with sadness and concern. She nodded.

Glory Girl was more vocal with her opinions. "Well, I'm no expert, but I'll give a solid Brute 9 for specifically for your balls."

Miss Militia groaned. Myself, I allowed only a small chuckle, because just delivered a speech that I was kinda proud of and sputtering would ruin the effect.

I turned to Miss Militia. "Is there anything else, ma'am?"

She nodded. "This is entirely optional, but having your capabilities on record makes it easier to cooperate with us should we meet on the field. Would you be interested in taking our power assessment test?"

"Yes!" My enthusiasm was practically coming off in waves, enough to make both heroines blinked in surprise. How can I not be excited? Miss Fucking Militia, just asked me to show her what I could do! It was recognition! I'll show them all!

"Well, uh… you're enthusiastic, that's good!" Yes! "But our Brute gym is on maintenance this week, and I need to make requisitions and arrangements if you're a tinker. I can make an appointment on Saturday morning. Will you be available? " No!

"Oh! Oh… Okay then. Yeah, I'll be here on Saturday." I probably sounded like a deflated balloon.

Glory Girl snorted. "Never seen anyone that exited over being poked at by eggheads. You know what, are you free on tomorrow evening? "

I was, and I answered as such. Glory Girl's smile grew radiant.

"Sweet! Have you ever thought of doing volunteer work at the hospital? You can fix people, right?" I considered that for a moment. Weighing it on my mind. With my knowledge, it's probably true that, in the short term, I would help a lot of people if I just dedicate myself to healing. I opened my mouth to say I'll definitely consider that. "Come on! I'll introduce you to my sister. Ames has her shift there tomorrow."

Ames? As in Amy? Of Dallons? Panacea? The Panacea?

"I-"

"You both can work together! Come on, tell me you don't want to work with her, she's amazing! Everyone likes her!" She was like a train. When her track's laid and her furnace's fired up, Glory Girl just choo choo and run over everything. "So, Brockton Bay General! Tomorrow at six, you in?"

"I-"

"Glory Girl!" Miss Militia did what she does best and rescued the damsel in distress. "First, Give the poor girl air. Second, we can't have an untested parahuman use her power on sick and injured civilians. It's literally against every protocol out there."

"Come on!" The blonde whined. "Why not? She's not a villain!"

"I know, but it's against the rules." The older heroine let out a breath and turned to me. "I'm sorry, miss. Don't take this personally, but rules are rules."

I nodded despite the little sting at the suggestion that I would harm the patients. I guess being a hero mean respecting little pointless things like that. Annoying, but surely it can't hurt, right?

Right!

"Fine!" Glory Girl huffed. "You can still come and say hello, watch how things go though. Are you still interested?"

I dunno, was I interested in being personally introduced to the greatest healer-

 _Second greatest!_

 _We don't believe in forces higher than ourselves._

-greatest healer on the planet?

"Yes!"

 _Is this one of those role play things?_

* * *

Afternoon was an infinitely more peaceful and, with seven thousands dollar in cash weighing me down, enjoyable ordeal.

First order of business was buying some stopgap costume. What I was wearing was an extremely half-assed attempt at concealing my identity and I was fairly certain everyone just consciously block it out for politeness. I acquired a grey parka and a brass color goggle was better at the job, even if they were horrifically uninspired fashion-wise.

Note to self: visit Parian

For my hero of the hour, I took her to Brockton Bay's most infamous fast food joint: Fugly Bob's, where hearts and arteries goes to die. I've been here, but infrequent enough that I could count my visits on one hand. It was not that the food was bad; far from it. Fugly Bob's was a recognized tourist attraction and had the culinary muscles to back it up. My problem was that the eponymous Bob was very generous with the grease. Some said, if you suck on the greaseproof paper, you would consume enough calories to suplex Behemoth, but only if your heart could survive the transition from being biology to particle physics.

Unfortunately, that was completely untrue, as I, the staffs, and thirty something patrons on that day could testify. After benchmarking Eve with four Fugly Challenger combos, all I had to show was that many t-shirts and certificates and not one Behemoth killer. You would that capes would be exempted from winning the prize, but seeing how we lived in Brockton and the only other winner according to the board of honor was a Japanese guy named Kenta, it was fair game.

Eve was very satisfied, especially since she got new clothes to show for it. She had taken to tie together all four of the Challenger Down shirts and them wear over the shoulders as a cape of sort, and the white actually look good on her, at least from afar where the four steakburgers weren't visible. Up close, she's just adorable. Still, I needed to help her sewn them into a proper cape for her.

Later that evening, I splurged another two grands on a top-of-the-line gaming laptop. Much of me regretted that I was not going to get much mileage out of it before its inevitable sacrifice to Science. But, for now, it would serve its purpose of guiding me deep into the world of silicon and binary.

Unlike some of my...peers, I was not by any mean ignorant on information technology. Far from it. Computer Science was my favourite class, mostly by virtue of its teacher, Mrs Knott, doing the most out of the entire faculty to prevent my bullying. That's to say, she sit next to me in class. Objectively better than absolutely nothing. The Heterodynes, on the other hand, were improbably enlightened on the subject for people who had never before considered the concept of silicon wafer.

Between our collective expertise and a few cups of tea, we created a new OS from scratch after somewhere between three and four hours. Window was good, no doubt about it, but it suffered from two fatal flaws. First, it a generalist design whereas I only required one specialised purpose. Second, its programmers were bogged down by linear assumptions of a singular reality, leading to criminally underutilizing resources available to them. My system, on the other hand, were made specifically for CAD-CAM and made use of sub-dimensional logic crumble point architecture for vastly superior processing muscle and efficiency.

Of course, right now I only use it for visualizing and designing objects of up to seven dimensions. Meaning, I was criminally underutilizing resources. Most of its power went to the CAM portion. Since the actual manufacturing tools would take a while to set up, a lot of my machine went unused for the time being.

The idea was simple: infinitely precise blueprints required infinitely precise hands to turn the wonders within mind into wonders without. Unfortunately, my own flesh was bound by mortal limitations. New tools were required.

I think can help with that. I remembered the a blonde girl said as my mind pulled up memories and visions. Little rowdy two bipedal machines of countless shapes and sizes, lead by a walking locket. Dingbots. Von Neumann replicators. Automated workers created to create. They were ingenious.

And yet, they were created by but one. One exceedingly bright example of the line, but one nonetheless. She was here now, alongside with the rest. I could do better. Instead of one Prime leading the horde, which lead to several instances of the classic Rebellious Construct Syndrome, I opted for one central admin hub, emulating eusocial insects. The laptop would be the queen, the smaller bots its drones. This model lacked the autonomy and initiative of the original concept, but much more reliable as well as being easier to direct and control.

Once I was deep the ghosts' melody, I started seeing the world in much clearer light. I saw how I could upset this balance, break the stalemate. Even across worlds, mortals did not play the Heterodynes' game. Unlike my precursors, I was not content to let them carry out their little songs and dances. Plans for myself and for Brockton Bay today, and the world soon after. The feeling of knowing that you have the power to make a change, to make or break, was intoxicating.

Through it all, I remembered a man. Tall and broad, like a mountain masquerading human. His long black hair fell just past the small of his back. On his head was a simple ban of brass that somehow carried a terrible weight. I remember him placing a hand on my shoulder.

 _Hy am proud._

I worked well into the night until Dad came up to call me down for late dinner. I would like to say that we had meatloaf, but that would be implying that the meat retained its loaf shape. No, we just had meat. Still, Dad cooked!.

"Dad," I called to him after we settled ourselves into the table. I knew the words, yet it weight heavy on my tongue all the same. Even though I intellectually understood them, saying them to him felt alien. Eating in the same table with him seemed alien.

But I made a resolve. We had to fix thing, and that meant I had to do my part as much as he had to do his. Sacrifices must be made, no matter how unthinkable. "How's your day?"

It was a start.


	9. Breakthrough 1-9

So, a short, light chapter. I originally intended to write all the way to Panacea, but I just stumbled on a pretty good break point and decided to call this one here. Oh yeah, I remember to threadmark!

* * *

 _Our world was burning. It was one of the lucky few. Most others were but cosmic dust now._

 _I stood, shaky legs finding purchase upon the roof of my beloved Castle. Despite the encroaching spectre of extinction before me, I laughed. I wished my husbands were here with me, to laugh our defiance together as the end approached. Instead, the last of the line would laugh alone._

 _I died as my world was reduced to a soup of electrons and subprotonic particles. My requiem, humanity's requiem, was the howl of a dying god._

 _Eye for an eye. Extinction for extinction._

Tuesday. 7th of October, 2010

* * *

Ding!

Even in my current state within the limbo between sleep and awake, the sound brought a little smile to my lip. Groggily, I pushed myself up straight. I must have fallen asleep on the desk working last night, an observation supported by my neck and back being up in open rebellion. Once I have the time to address my body, they'll know the price of insolence.

Ding!

"And ding to you too." I greeted my creation through half-lidded eyes. My right hand reached forward, thumb extended out in offer of a perch. The little guy leapt on, allowing me to bring it up for inspection.

At first glance, it was indistinguishable from a black beetle, barely the size of the digit it sat on. It was an intentional design choice, else people would start asking question about the von Neumann replicators buzzing around. That would be an awkward conversation.

The bug's wings spread out, humming as it lifted itself an inch into the air. A nigh-imperceptible hum sounded as its body shifted. Legs extended several times their original size to become spider-like. Four arms unfolded from beneath the belly, each tipped with its own tiny collection of power tools. In this state, he looked like a demented, winged, mechanical soldier ant.

My first Neo-Dingbot, or Dingbug, had taken a full night for me to build properly, mostly because of all the miniscule machineries requiring a hair-splitting amount of precision and I only had a tweezer to work from. It was frustrating, to say the least. But if I got everything correct, and I did, then I would never need to do this again.

The Dingbug had two different components. There was the laptop, which acted as the brain to this one and all others' limbs. Then there was the bug itself, a tiny semi-autonomous platform, Its four hidden arms were equipped with the precise micro-tools required for easily building more similarly-sized machines as well as performing additive manufacturing. Its extendable legs allowed for a disproportionately tight grip for something of its size. In sufficient numbers, they could easily replicate the feats of a human, or even a Brute, worker. Inside the shell was a tiny communication array connected to a rudimentary processor unit. This way, it would retain enough intelligence to pretend to be a bug when disconnected from the network.

Encrypting the entire thing was the hardest part. I managed to klutz together a passable algorithm with the little time I had, but I still need to revisit that in the future. In the meantime, the exotic OS, quinticimal system and the fact that they communicated with each other using aetheric oscillation of one dimensional crystals should deter most nosy black hats.

"Are you ready to go out there, little guy?"

An avalanche of dings came from all around me in answer. My smile stretched further as I turned around to see dozens of replicas crawling out from every nooks and cranny of my room. The swarm converged upon me. Each tiny movement individually dictated by a greater intelligence to produce perfect coordination. They lined up in perfect formation like an insectile Roman legion, my own tiny army of ravenous replicators.

I turned to my left where my new laptop lay. Its DOS-like black screen waited for my directives. It sucked that I didn't had the time to properly set up the GUI outside what was necessary, but I guess the retro look was kinda cool. The novelty would wear off eventually then I'd update my OS with a proper interface soon, of course. Just not now.

With a grin so wide it hurt, I typed in 'replicate', then 'perimeter: brockton bay'.

The mechanical bugs simultaneously took to the air, wings buzzing in unison: a singular entity, with one mind and one purpose. I watched as they headed for the closed window, my own room already picked clean of acceptable material. Without a moment of hesitation, they swarmed the handle. Legs extended to wrap around the metal length. Others joined in, limbs interlocking in a flying reenactment of the soldier ants' infamous construction. The window slid open without a lick of resistance, and the dingbugs were free.

I watched the mass of black dispersed into the sky, their movement concealed in the darkness of the early winter morning. I squinted, trying to catch the glint of the city light reflecting off of their shells to little success. It was such a shame that I lacked the eyesight needed; the sight would have been so beau-

I doubled over, hands gripping the windowsill as a wave of nausea made its sudden impact. My legs quivered then gave out, sending me to my knees. What I thought were just symptoms of waking up too early in the morning got worse and worse; the lethargy made my limbs felt like lead, my eyelids felt like I hadn't sleep in a year.

The nausea came again, forcing me to heave out my supper over the window down and the backyard. Through the haze, I noticed streaks of red within the bile.

Ah, that would be the radiation talking. I had taken a suppressant for the symptoms once I realized I was dying, else I never would have gotten any work done. Obviously, I needed a new dose now. And a cure. Can't forget a cure.

With a grunt, I pushed myself back onto my feet. I stumbled out of my bedroom and descended the stair with the grace of a drunk and high hobo, right down to the part where I tripped and rolled down the last couple steps.

The ruckus roused Eve from her slumber on the couch. She peeked over and let out a gasp when she saw my form sprawling on the floor. In a flash, she was next to me. She lent me her shoulders for support, and I latched onto them to pull myself up. Once I was reasonably steady again, Eve nuzzled her head into my hand, tongue lapping at the cuts.

"I'm fine," I answered "just forgot to take my pill, that's all."

Eve let out a little whine, concern painted clearly on her face. I let out a little laugh and gave her an affectionate pat before stumbling into the bathroom. The mirror cabinet was rather understocked, but thankfully there was still enough assorted medicine in there for perhaps one batch that would keep me sorted for another day.

Grabbing what I needed, I dragged my ailing form into the kitchen and started the stove. Thankfully, the process didn't require much monitoring if one knew what they were doing. That bought me a few minutes of slumping over the dinner table to rest my legs and wheeze my lung out while the suppressant cooked.

Finally, the eggtimer's beeping signified that my medicine was ready. I struggled, trying to gather the strength needed to push myself up toward the pot. Eve beat me to it, pushing me back to the chair as she blitzed past to retrieve the radiation suppressant from the stove and placed the pot before me.

"Good girl." I said, running a hand through her hair again as I peered into the black bubbling sludge before. It smelled like rotten potatoes, and probably tasted worse, but it was either that or getting nothing done today. Or forever, for that matter.

Nerving myself, I took a deep breath before pouring the entire content down my esophagus, trying to avoid any tongue or throat contact when possible. The sludge maintained a sort of cohesion to it that allowed the entire thing to pour down with minimal deviantion, and a glass of water mostly washed everything down.

I slumped down on the table, my head buried between my arms. Already, I could feel the headache leaving, but my limbs remained leaden. It would take maybe ten to twenty minutes before I could resume to full capacity again.

Ah well, with my limbs temporarily out of commission, I guess I had time for some brainstorming and introspection.

I started humming to myself that same tune again, letting it drown out the pain in my limbs. Taking a deep breath, I voluntarily dove into the voices' memories. Mad men and monsters they might be, but their city, occasionally empire, flourished and thrived under their gaze. It was a twisted kind of flourishing and thriving that only made sense within the equally twisted world that were might or might not constructed whole cloth by my own twisted mind, but it was still better than what I could say for Brockton Bay. What applicable wisdom I managed to glean from the madness supported my own assessments.

The Heterodynes were the brightest among the brights, but they were never feared solely for their intellect. Standing behind them were the implacable Jaeger Corps, loyal minions, and the ever impregnable Mechanicsburg. Each Heterodyne was the mind, and their supporters the body. A symbiotic relationship that had the known world trembling in fear.

My power made me half of Europa's Greatest Natural Disaster, but without a body to act on my designs, the best I could do is go out there and death ray everything really, really hard. Admittedly not the worst of plans, but still lacking in speed and efficiency. If anything, my Dad was in a much better position to make a change as the unofficial Head of the Dockworkers Association, if he only had the will and the sight that the ghosts granted. Now that's a thought; imagine if Dad was the one to host the Insane Anonymous.

But I digressed. If I wanted to get this city off the ground, I needed an army to back me up. An army that my Science(!) could amplify.

 _Vell,_ I turned up and saw the same spectre from last night. The mountain of a man whose very being conjured the concepts of barbarian warlords from beyond the edge of civilizations. _Iv hyu vanna start hyu own varband, hy inzizt on koachink, startink vith de Varlord's Lizt._

I blinked, confusion plain on my face, "I'm not gonna take Brockton Bay by force. That's literally treason!"

One of his thick eyebrows touched the metal band on his forehead. His lip twitched into a smug smirk. _Ho? Hy saw hyu goink for de induztrial output uf a couple nationz, den complaint 'bout needink an army, so hy azzumed..._

"I'm going in as a tech firm." As soon as I looked up what that actually entailed "Like Edison's Innovation Factory. I know my tinkertech doesn't have the common limitations like mass production, maintenance, inaccessibility…"

 _De only chainz holdink back SZCIENCE! Iz de lezzer man's fear._ It sounded like a tagline, the way he said it. It sounded pretty good, actually. Maybe if I could tone it down a bit, I could use that for what I'm planing.

"I know if I just...set a low ceiling for a few of my works." I felt bile rose in my throat, and knew it had nothing to do with the semi-lethal radiation in my body. "If I can do that, it would be indistinguishable from really advanced normal technology."

Brockton Bay wasn't entirely an economic shit hole; its tech sector was booming, especially medical technology with Medhall at the front. The problem, as Dad had laid out for me last night, was that they didn't pay the blue collar worker's bill. With the majority of Brocktonites lacking the qualification to work in the one sector that was steadily devouring all capital, the effect of this boom was functionally similar to a crash: more and more desperate and jobless labourers turning to crime and drugs. All those lost and wretched men, needing someone to take gave them a purpose again. I could do that.

He started laughing, _Hy see! Varlordz ov different colors iz vardlorz still. Call me ven hyu need me!_

I watched as his form faded, yet his booming laughter kept reverberating in my head for a full minute. I turned my head up, eyes glaring at where his had been. When, not if. Damn ghosts! What was so difficult to understand about me not wanting to rule Brockton Bay through an iron fist?

I sighed and pushed myself up. I stretched, confirming that my body was back in full working order again. I did a few twists, groaning at the immensely satisfying poppings that came with it.

"Morning, kiddo. You're up early?" I turned around. Dad was there, just outside the kitchen. There were black bags under his eyes and his hair looked like some manner of birds had taken it for a nest. He tossed one of his arm up, the hand hovered at his shoulder before dropping down A wave, I deducted. "Wish I have that kind of energy…"

Despite myself, I couldn't help but giggle a little at the sight, "Bad sleep, Dad?"

His first answer was a stream of incoherent, sleep addled grumbles. Catching my confusion, he sighed and tried again, "It's just… between Kurt calling in the middle of the night about some Merchants torching a warehouse, Christner made it clear he isn't tossing the Docks any bones, and seven of our younger numbers getting arrested, I'm feeling swamped. That's not to mention you, Taylor. I'm happy for you, but you're not doing your old man's heart any good."

The last line was said with a smile and an affectionate hair rustling, but I could still hear the pain, fear and uncertainty beneath it all.

"Dad, it's going to be fine." I parroted that one line again out of pure reflex. "Eve's not going to let anyone hurt me."

The construct in question sat straighter at the mention, her face slipped into a mask of dutiful determination like a soldier at attention. My father let out a laugh at the sight, his hand reached out to idly scratch at her rigid head. Eve remained perfectly motionless under his administration for a whole five seconds before she started nipping playfully at his fingers.

"I know Eve's badass, don't get me wrong." My girl practically preened at that. "But...well, it's…. I just wish I could do more for you, kiddo."

Oh! Right, so in hindsight, insisting to pay off all the backlogged bills last night wasn't the most tactful way to solve our financial situation.

"I wish you could do more for me too, Dad." I whispered, the words causing him to flinch. "I also wish that I could be a better daughter. I wish that the Protectorate could save everyone. I wish the Triumvirate could beat the Endbringers at every turn."

I looked up at him and grinned, "We will never be who we wish to be, Dad, but we as long as we keep trying, then it's okay. So what if you're not the best Dad on the planet? You're my Dad, and I know you're doing everything you could."

He stared at me, eyes blinking and mouth slightly ajar. When he spoke, it was with a little smile, "I never knew you were so eloquent, Taylor."

"It's the voices in my head, Dad." I said, hands raised in defense. "They can be pretty philosophical and deep when they aren't trying to convince me to take over the world."

Dad's face seemed torn between a grimace and a laugh.

"Well, as much as I love to have you talk my sorrows away, two warehouses literally caught fire when I wasn't there." Dad lamented with a long suffering sigh. "I'll have to miss breakfast again. Take care, kiddo."

He pulled me in to plant a kiss on my head, causing me to let out a series of indignant squawks before giving him a jab in the chest. Feigning agony, he clutched the wound and stumbled back out of the kitchen, waving goodbye as he did.

I sported a huge, goofy smile as I sent him off. The smile persisted even as I retreated back to my room to start working on my first "commercial invention", as it were. The concept of dumbing down my creations for the ignorant masses still made me growl at the screen, but it felt better knowing that the sooner I got this little scheme of me off the ground, the sooner it would take pressure off of Dad and the DWA.

Humanity got itself addicted to engines and generators by somewhere around the nineteenth century, and times only made the craving worse. Even the emergence of capes, specifically tinkers, barely tickled that status quo. Be it taking your children to schools or superpowered mass murderers to the Birdcage, constructing civil projects or waging war on Far East nations, everyone needed that piece of technology if they wanted to get anything done. Your jeeps and tanks won't roll without the mechanical energy driving the wheels, and your spy satellites and nuclear deterrents won't work without captured lightning running in their veins.

So, operating on Merchants' logic, the best way to gauge money out of a junkie is to provide a better drug, optionally at cheaper rate. This was made easier by the fact that the current industrial standards in this field looked like what a Spark grade schooler would build when they got bored of scientifically cataloging their boogers. After all, everything still rigidly observed conservation of energy!

My design focused on massively overhauling and improving the standard four-stroke concept in order to maintain simplicity instead of moving over to Otto's vastly superior (the psychotic pyromaniac pirate, not the engineer) Meta-Euclidean inverse reciporating turbine model.

After some tweaking with...basically everything, I managed to achieve 500 horsepower at 74% fuel efficiency and still compact enough to fit into a family sedan. Its main draw was not its sorta-acceptable-if-stuck-on-a-deserted-island engineering specs, but the fact that it was simple that any schmuck with some training in mechanics and a guide could do it.

I compressed the blueprint and transferred it to my new phone. It was a minimalistic thing, indistinguishable from a bootleg smartphone at first glance save for the little trilobite on the home button. Its primary function was to be a direct extension to my Dingbugs network, allowing me to send orders and receive status updates from the swarm everywhere I go. Outside of that, it was just a standard tinkertech smartphone: It could make and receive calls, access the internet, take pictures of respectable quality, and emit a variable sonic beam of up to 190 decibel anywhere between 0.01 and 30,000 Hz.

With a grin, I scrambled the file into my bugs and instructed them to deliver everything to Benjamin'. A unexpected but obvious in hindsight advantage to the Dingbugs was that I could use them as an intelligence grid. Now, I wouldn't use them to spy on everyone in their house like Big Sister 1984 style, but I could still use them as a medium for transmitting information. The ex-ganger would find the blueprint and instructions written down for him soon enough.

I flicked over to Message, typed in his number, and composed a simple order of "Just follow the instructions."

I could build the entire thing myself, of course. It would take me one or two hours at most, but that wasn't the point. I wanted something that any mechanic could work with provided they know what they were doing. Tinkertech had always been defined by its sheer exclusiveness: high maintenance, strange inherent blackboxing, and a sundry of other factors that prevent them from ever becoming widespread. By virtue of being accessible, I had a pretty good case of my innovation not being tinkertech, which should make the legality behind monetising them much easier if I remember Mr Gladly's classes correctly.

So, I entrusted the prototyping to Ben, because I needed to prove a point. I needed to prove, perhaps to myself above all else, that another tinkers' limitations were but polite suggestions to me.

With the message sent and the first tiny step to pulling this city out of the gutter completed, I leaned back and let out a breath. I had a generator design planned as well, but all this commercialized Science had left me more than a little stir crazy. I needed something exciting, though preferably not too violent. A visit to Parian sounded like it would do the trick.

I wasn't a clothes horse, not by any stretch, but a cape's costume was Important! Nobody will take me seriously if I keep going around looking like an amateur on my first night. The ghosts were also rather fixated on presentation too, so I guess their enthusiasm rubbed off on me a little.

 _I just don't see why we need this...Parian, darling. We've centuries of experience in setting fashion standards across all of Europa!_

"I don't trust you enough to not cover me in spikes?"

 _Oh, darling! We are a family of wealth and taste. Spikes have fallen out of villainous fashion since the 1600s!_

"...Still no. I'm a hero, that mean heroic fashion! What if someone like Armsmaster pegs me as a villain on sight because they got the wrong impression?"

 _Didn't they already do that?_


	10. Breakthrough 1-10

There are some minor inconsistencies in chapter 7 that has been now fixed. Basically, Taylor didn't fix her radiation poisoning back then. Also, this will be the last chapter I post on ff dot net. I don't understand how the formatting work. In this chapter, some of Taylor dialogue was supposed to be in another font, but that apparently not an option. This is just going to get worse once I want to write PHO sections. So, please consider checking out the Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity versions, where updates will continue.

* * *

Tuesday. 7th of December, 2010

Parian's Doll House was not quite what I expected. Then again, I'm not sure what I expected; an actual, life-sized doll house, maybe? Instead, what I found was a little white-painted storefront unassumingly tucked away on a small street.

I spotted the tourists, gawkers, and cape chasers loitering outside the boutique from afar. Heads turned and people huddled together as I approached. I felt their stares on me as I passed, heard the barely intelligible hushed whispers behind me. The callback to Winslow was not lost on me, yet it was not an exact reflection. They squirmed and shrunk into themselves as my goggled eyes swept across them. They were afraid.

I wished Eve was here with me. The bundle of perky, occasionally murderous pyrotechnics would absorb all this attention with her antics and wouldn't even notice it. Alas, she had found my sewing kit and gotten hell bent on making a cape out of her trophy shirts by herself. She was so absorbed in it that I simply didn't have the heart to interrupt her. So I left her to her own devices, hoping that the needles survived the ordeal.

Without Eve with me, I had to take the full brunt of this unwanted attention. Admittedly, being feared was infinitely better than being the butt of hundreds of unspoken jokes. It was kinda enjoya-stop.

Shut up. Think heroic thoughts.

The Doll House's entrance had a sign mounted on one of its wooden doors. It read "Harassers will be evicted."

Stopping to confirm that I did bring the cash, I pushed on the door. Its opening was accompanied by the chime of a shopkeeper's bell.

The Doll House's interior was like a fashion boutique as seen through Barbie-fied Victorian goggles. I had to suppress a squeak when I spotted Parian. The doll cape was working at the far end of the building, beyond the clothes racks and display mannequins. Fabrics, thread and needles twirled and flew around her like dancers moving to her unheard tune.

"Sir, I'll have to ask you to state your business." A Russian-tinted voice called to my left. I turned and saw a large man dressed up in a black suit looking at me. He was as tall as I was but with much more bulk. His head sported a neat buzzcut, like those soldiers in movies.

"I'm...uh...I'm here to buy a costume?" The man's eyes narrowed and he nodded. Aside from the miniscule pause at the sound of my voice, he remained stoic.

"Do you have an appointment?"

Shit! I did not. Of course I would need an appointment. Parian couldn't just talk to every hoodie-clad teenager barging into her workshop. That was stupid!

"I'll take it from here, Sergey. Keep up the good work."

I turned to the new voice and promptly froze as my eyes took in the curly blond locks and frilly white dress. Parian was right behind me! Her porcelain mask nodded at the guard, who grunted an affirmative and returned to staring at the entrance. The fashionista then turned to me, her head cocked in curiosity. It was hard to judge with so much of her covered, but her body language conveyed friendliness.

"Hello there, you said you wanted a costume? You're a cape then, yes?" It took a second or two for her question to successful lodge into my head.

"I..um..yes? I'm a cape, so yeah!" I honestly had no idea what was wrong with me. One moment I could pull enough charisma to talk the pants off Alexandria from nowhere, and the next I was stammering like an idiot.

Parian giggled and turned around, gesturing for me to follow her into the back.

"You're in luck! Normally I insist on clients calling in advance to make an appointment before visiting. But I'll make an exception for you since I really need something to distract me from this commision." The last part was said with a huff and one thumbed jabbed over her shoulder at a mannequin dressed in what looked like the beginning of an actual Disney princess gown, all bright pink and ribbony. "So! I understand if you don't want to, but if you can demonstrate, that would really help me."

"Oh… I...well, I'm a tinker. Not sure how I can do that here."

"A tinker, huh?" The doll girl cupped her chin in one hand and hummed. "I don't usually get your type around here. Don't tinkers usually do it themselves?"

"I'm a healer, I know how to patch people up, fix injuries, perform surgery. Improve people." I explained, conveniently leaving out the more...questionable aspects. After all, that was what I decided to reveal to the Protectorate. An exceptional yet still comprehensible specimen instead of, well… me.

Parian nodded professionally, but her posture shifted slightly. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the guard, Sergey, glancing over for a split second, "I see. We can aim for that doctor look then, there's a few lab coats and Hewey coats that I keep in the backroom for reference. Do you have any particular idea in mind?"

I nodded. "There's a few design concepts from the internet that I like. I think I want to go for a classical look. Perhaps the same era as your?"

"A connoisseur!" She laughed, relaxing slightly. "Let's get to it, shall we?"

* * *

"So, are you sure about this?" Parian asked from where she stood behind me, one hand resting on her hip while the other cupped her chin.

"Why? Is it bad?" I smiled at the sound coming from the mask's modulator. My voice was how I imagined an angel would sound: beautiful and alien. It carried a musical quality to it, the pitch and tone of each syllable tuned to put the listener at ease. Between each was a deliberate disconnect, an otherness, so that one simply didn't flow well into the next. An overall monotone to the always shifting voice. Wouldn't want people going nuts about me Mastering them with a very nicely edited voice.

It had taken more than an hour to get the frequencies just right, but it was definitely worth it.

"No, no… It's just…" She hummed and circle me, "Unconventional. I love the design, don't get me wrong, Just that I don't usually work on something like this."

I shrugged and turned toward the mirror. My costume was a direct homage to both Panacea and the equally intrepid and misguided plague doctors of yesteryear. The black, ankle-length robe had been replaced with a white shoulder cape with red trimmings and a trench coat of the same color combination that parted at the waist. The pants were kept mostly unchanged, waxed black leather that ended in a pair of heavy boots. Similarly, my head were covered by the tight hood of my undershirt and the steel gray visage of the iconic beaked mask. Rounding off the costume was a short staff tipped with the Hippocrates symbol and a white wide-brimmed fedora.

The mask itself was particularly eye-catching. It mixed the classical bird mask with a modern gas mask which, of course, provided protection against conventional gas attack. The eyes were done to my prescription with the help of an awfully convenient tinkertech glass cutter and, at my insistence, had a blue glow to them.

Watching Parian putting everything together was equally fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating in watching the soundless orchestra of needles and fabric forming and unravelling themselves under her masterful guidance. Frustrating because they were just so many techniques she could have used but didn't, and I couldn't help her because that would mess with my story.

"I guess it is a little odd." Certainly couldn't be the strangest thing out there, though. Narwhal went around wearing forcefields. Literally just forcefields.

"Quite. By the way, you aaaaare a hero, right?"

I blink and turned toward her, the glow of my eyes casting a blue hue on her porcelain visage.

"Of course. What make you think otherwise?" I was wearing all white, wasn't I?

"...No reason! To be honest, it's a breath of fresh air. It's all spandex and contemporary these days," she said with an exaggerated sigh. "Anyway, I can reinforce it with a tinkertech fiber for an extra fee. Are you interested?"

I blinked and checked my pocket. I did have a sizable sum left. "What can I expect?"

"It's guaranteed to stop conventional blades cold as long as the wielder isn't a Brute. Good protection against bullets, getting shot by small arms would just feel like a nasty punch. It would still protect you against larger calibers, but it isn't rated for that," she explained.

I nodded and mulled over the description. "Not to sound ungrateful, but it's not top of the line."

"You're right. I can put in order for more expensive material if you want, but it'll take up to a couple weeks. I only stock this since it's a nice compromise between price and quality."

I shook my head. "No, it's fine. I was just thinking I could perhaps supply something better."

Parian looked at me, her exact expression still too well concealed under all that cover. But I could somehow just imagined a raised eyebrow on her.

"I thought you're a healer?"

"Well, I'm flexible with what I do." I replied sheepishly. I didn't sound sheepish, though. I didn't sound like anything at all.

The fashion designer rogue kept drilling into me with that same deadpan pose and eyeless stare, before shrugging. "Well, as long as it's not people spun into thread, I think we can work out a deal."

 _Vy iz effery vun such prude… Human leether iz exellenze ven treated right._

"I guess I can make an exception for Nazis, though."

 _Ha, kommon ground!_

"No. No. I would never." I imagined my actual voice was much higher pitched and uncomfortable. Thankfully, the mask modulated it into the musical monotone. "But yes. I would like the reinforcement installed. May I watch?"

"I don't see why not. Come, I'm sure I can give you some idea for how this work if you do want to supply me."

"I would love that."

* * *

They say life is all about learning. You fuck up, learn something you never knew, then hopefully you can use that to avoid fucking up the next time. Today, I learnt two things: One, I preferred going out with Eve because she was an attention magnet. Two, it was really awkward to walk from the Boardwalk to Brockton Bay General wearing my full ensemble. In hindsight, it wasn't the most subtle of get ups, but by God they stared!

The experience wasn't exactly unpleasant. It was true that I didn't like to be at the center of attention. But once I dipped a little bit into the asylum of insanity at the back of my head for that extra bit of confidence and stability, it mostly just felt surreal. Especially when I took the bus. I had the ingenious plan of using my bus pass before realizing that it was Taylor Hebert's pass. Then I decided to pay in cash. Except, the smallest bills I were carrying were hundred dollar notes.

I was never so glad that I had a mask that let me cheat my way out of a staring contest, because that elderly driver was good. After tentatively accepting my payment and a full five minutes of trying to raise the change from other passengers-a task that I suspected to have been expedited by my presence-I had to sit through a very uncomfortable ten minute ride.

At least I got a double seat, that was a happy break.

I got off at the hospital stop and managed a grand total of three steps before a white human missile descended to a perfect three point landing right in front of me.

Glory Girl's rising was a deliberate thing, each motion perfectly calculated to radiate threat and heroism. The unseen pressure crashed against the wall of my mind, and I met it with the grace of a mountain.

"You better explain yourself, buddy." She demanded, one finger poked me with enough force to send me back. "My sister's in there right now and if you make her day any more difficult, I'll sprinkle you over the East Coast after I'm through."

Wait, she didn't recognize me?

Well, yeah, this was a bit of a drastic shift from the paper-thin mask I wore the last time we met.

"Glory Girl, it's me. I-" The New Wave heroine's face immediately fell into a grimace.

"Oh no no no! I don't care if this is some revenge scheme! If you want payback for that one time I kicked you through a dumpster or kicked a dumpster through you or whatever, you're gonna need to provide a specific date and time, then take a number and get in line! One that doesn't involve a fucking hospital!"

I blinked. "Wait, we met on Wednesday. You were fighting my partner and I intervened."

That made Glory Girl reel back and frown. Then she tilted her head and frowned harder.

Taking the opportunity, I reached under my mask and turned off the modulator. "It's me! I was just testing some vocal settings."

Recognition flooded into her face and the pressure against my mind waned. She leaned over, legs leaving the ground slightly to get a closer look on me.

"You're...What on Earth are you wearing? Why are you a creepy knock-off of my sister?"

"Wha-what?" I sputtered indignantly even as I reached under the mask to turn the modulator back on. "I'm paying homage to both Panacea and the people whose work played a role in setting the foundation of modern medicine."

"...Oookay! Never mind that. Why do you have that voice?"

"It's designed to be audibly pleasant but not too much to be considered mind-altering." I defended.

"It sounds like a killer robot is having a S&M session with my inner ears." I cocked my head, the imagery causing my brain to lag a little in visualizing it. It wasn't that bad, was it? Did what she described constitute a bad thing?

 _Hoo boys! Hyu iz family 'right._

 _We are so proud of you! Young people these day hardly know how to dress appropriately._

I groaned and buried my face in my arm, the motion somewhat hampered by my beak. Good job, me.

"Hey now, it's not that bad!" Glory Girl's laugh was a little forced. She tossed an arm over my shoulders and gave me a gigawatt smile. "You just need to give people notice beforehand, you know."

I let out something between a laugh and a snort. The mask then twisted that sound into something...different. Glory Girl's eyes twitched just a bit.

"Well! Let's take you to see my sister. Come on! She's usually in ER around now." Before I could get in a 'yes, let's', the blonde hooked an arm under mine and dragged me off toward the hospital. "By the way, do you have a name yet?"

"No. I'm still thinking about it."

Glory Girl turned around and scanned me from head to toe, one hand idly scratching at her cheek. "Well, since the classic 'Hey, you' is gonna get confusing after awhile….How 'bout Beaky?"

"Beaky?"

"Yep! Call it incentive for finally picking a name already." Her equally radiant and shit-eating grin was something special. I half-suspected she practiced it just for the sole purpose of screwing with people.

"Wha-"

"Ohey there she is!" My head snapped toward where she pointed. It didn't take much effort to find Panacea. Her iconic long, white robe and red cross stood out amongst the ER's miserable atmosphere.

The world-renowned healer turned toward us just as Glory Girl came to a stop with me in tow. Panacea eyed me wearily before cracking a tired smile at her sister.

"Amy, this is Beaky, your creepy but not evil knock-off. Beaky, Amy, the original," was Glory Girl's way of introducing us. Panacea turned to me, her lips quivered slightly.

"My sister mentioned you. " She greet cordially. "Beaky?"

"Events happening between my meeting with Glory Girl and the present are somewhat surreal." The healer flinched, then snorted and rolled her eyes.

"That's Hurricane Victoria alright." Her tone of voice suggested veterancy in this matter. "Sorry about that. My sister is… excitable."

The last part was delivered with a glare at the other Dallon. It was fascinating, watching the unflappable teenage goddess shrink into herself under the mousy brunette's gaze. She let out a few sheepish chuckles, which only served to make Amy harden her gaze.

"No, it's fine, really." I spoke up, deciding to pay back Glory Girl's favor. "It is a honor to meet you."

Panacea's cheeks flushed slightly, obviously unused to praise,"Oh...um, thanks!… Really, I'm just glad to have another hand around here."

"Oh. I'm not allowed to help yet until after this Saturday. The PRT is leery on the whole thing."

"Yeah, don't they always." She agreed with a smile. "Still, let's me show you around. I do the ER first, but I'm done there, so we're heading to Intensive Care."

I smiled and fell into step behind her. Glory Girl had dropped out of her hover and choose instead to walk by her sister's side.

Watching Panacea working was such a treat! She would approach a patient and lay a hand on bare skin and immediately know what was wrong with their body. Then she narrated it, more for my sake then hers, about the process she was taking the body through to mend it. It was fascinating how much knowledge she could glean with just a touch and the ease with which she simply commanded the flesh to mend. Bacteria and virus were simply told to die, immune systems invigorated at a whim, flesh and bones flowed like clay under a master's hand.

The best parts were the ones with visible wounds. Those, I got to see for myself her handiwork instead of simply being told what was happening through her words and the monitoring equipment. It was inspiring! Perhaps it was for the best that Eve wasn't here, I didn't know if I could resist commandeering an operating theater and immediately get to the SCIENCE!

There was also something else. Something much less exciting and a whole lot more worrying. Panacea seemed off. Tired and weary, and not the kind that came from a long day. There was a whole lot less passion than I expected. She was going through the same motions: come, ask for permission to heal, then heal because Darwin made sure anyone who would refuse got culled from the gene pool long ago. People would thank her, and she just move on, occasionally cracking a tired smile.

After ICU, Panacea started to go through her waitlist. These were the patients whose modern medicine could not help, but who were not in risk of immediate death. Aside from the different subjects, her routine was the same. She came, asked for permission when applicable (What's up with that, anyway?), then move on.

Glory Girl didn't say much throughout the walk, instead settled for frowning all through it. It was odd, seeing the blonde spitfire so still and calm. Did she notice the routine too?

It was an hour into this that we were approached by an Asian woman in a nurse uniform. She was around Dad's age at first glance, with much of the same weariness and worldly weight that added a few decades to their years.

"Miss Panacea!" She called out. "Lovely meeting you tonight. Have you been working late again?"

"Mrs Baker…" Panacea's voice suggested an acquaintanceship, but I also heard a tiny bit of...guilt? Yes, guilt, under it. "I was just leaving."

"Uh huh…" The nurse didn't sound convinced at all. "When was the last time you ate?"

The white-robed healer's stomach decided to answer the question for her with a low rumble.

"Amy Dallon." Glory Girl started, suddenly back to her boisterous self again. Her feet lifted off the ground and both hands rested on her hips as she stared down at the brunette."Did you skip dinner?"

The mousy girl avoided her sister's eyes, shrinking into herself. "Well, you know… "

"I KNOW what I said about skipping dinner, do you? "

"It's not good for your health… "

Glory Girl nodded imperiously crossed her arms. "Good, then we're getting you dinner right now!"

"Oh, no need for that." Mrs Baker said cheerily as she produced a black box and pressed it into the healer's hand. She then carefully removed the lid, letting its aroma washed over us. Cooked rice, octopus-shaped sausages and fried vegetables. A bento. "I'm always prepared for your sister. It's the least I can do for her in return."

The last part was directed at Glory Girl with a wink, and the blonde doubled down on her stare at Panacea.

"Amy…."

"I'll leave you girls to it." The nurse said with a smile before turning to me. "I haven't seen you around before, are you with them?"

I nodded, "I'm going to volunteer here soon, after the PRT give the all clear. I'm tagging along to see how things work."

"I see." I caught a flicker of hope crossing her features followed by disappointment before it fell back into a neutral smile. "Do you have a name?"

"Not yet." I cast a glance toward Glory Girl, half expecting her to butt in, but she seemed uninterested right now. "It's hard to decide."

"Well, I am Akari Baker, a pleasure to meet to. I hope to see you more around here." She smiled warmly and offered a hand, which I gingerly took and shook. "Sorry I can't stay, but duty calls."

I watched as the woman turned around and left, her pace hurried.

"You two know each other?" I asked Panacea. The New Wave heroine looked away and sighed.

"...yeah… She said she's been a nurse here for twelve years, but we only met in January, when I… healed her husband." She turned away, like she was talking about something shameful. "He got caught in a crash. All I could do was stabilize him; his brain was...I couldn't help him. I failed her."

"Amy…" Glory Girl sighed, dropping back down to earth and laid a hand on her sister. "You can't think like that. Even you can't save everyone."

"I know that. Still, sometime, I think it would be easier if she wasn't so grateful. It just reminds me..."

"Sis…"

The rest of their conversation was drown out by the hospital's noise as my legs took me toward the direction the nurse headed. I didn't know what I was doing, what I expected to achieve from this. There was nothing I could do to help her.

Nothing I was allowed to do.

I stalked through the sterile hall, occasionally stopped to ask for directions. Nobody dared deny me, and so I continued unimpeded into the inpatient ward. I caught sight of the woman from afar, ducking into a room. I slowed my gait and crept after her, inching toward the door. Her hasty entrance left it ajar, and I could hear both the beeping of heart monitor and her voice, level yet strained.

"I'll have to pull the plug soon."

I dared a peek inside. The Asian woman was sitting by the bed, her hands clasped around a sleeping, no, a comatose man's own, idly playing with his fingers.

"Things have been going downhill, as always." There was a bitter laugh. "I have been taking loans from people, but… " Her words trailed off as tiny sobs wracked her small form. Her hands clung to the unconscious man's like a lifeline. "It's what you'd have wanted, right? For Allison?"

"It's gonna be okay." I mumbled under my own breath, too soft for the modulator to pick up. "Just hang on."

"I haven't told her yet. I just… I don't want to distract her from Cornell. She has a future there, Frank!" She pulled on the man's arm, using it to flick away tears. "I'm so proud of her .She doesn't need parents like us pulling her down."

"Saturday. It's just Saturday."

"She still loves you, you know. I know the last time you two talked, it didn't go so well, but she always ask about you when she writes home. She's a lot like you in the end, huh?"

"Yo! Beaky, there you are!" I turned around, seeing Glory Girl floating up the hall, Panacea right behind. "You just up and disappeared. What're are you doing here?"

 _Vill hyu let de lezzer men's fear diktate hyu?_

What am I doing here anyway?

My mind went back to Winslow, back to the faceless, homogenous mass of flesh-colored apathy and malice that stood and watched when they could have offered a hand.

"I'm saving Mr Baker." I informed her, as factually as tomorrow's dawn, as I stepped into the room. Mrs Baker turned to me, teary eyes wide in equal parts surprise, hope and fear. She worked her mouth, trying to formulate words, but I silenced her. "Please, inform a doctor so that a theater can be prepared. Your husband will wake by dawn."

She nodded, hands wiping at tear-streaked eyes as she turned and ran.

"Beaky, what the fuck?" I spun around to face Glory Girl, my coat billowing around me as I did. The blonde didn't look particularly angry, only confused. "What are you doing?"

I met those brilliant baby blue eyes with my own glowing lenses. My mask might have concealed the determination within my eyes, but the certainty of my motion spoke volumes.

"I have the power to help, therefore I shall help." I declared before turning back to my quarry. This would be slightly more complicated without consulting his medical records, but I've done worse.

"Can you do it?" I looked over my shoulders and saw Panacea walking forward, her lips set in a grim line. "Heal the brain? Undo the damage."

There is nothing outside my reach.

"Yes."

Hundreds of emotions flashed across her face, too fast for me to catch, before settling on determination. My eyes caught her fists bailing for a second before relaxing. "Then how can I help?"

I allowed myself to gush a little at her question. It wasn't everyday the greatest healer on the planet comes forth to offer assistance while you take the lead. Still, I pushed that away and refocused on my patient. There would be plenty of time to feel good about myself later.

"Can you give me a comprehensive diagnosis of our man?" I asked.

She nodded and walked to the comatose patient. Her hands touched his, and she begun to highlight the damage that needed undoing. Traumatic brain injuries was not outside of my power, few things were. However, undoing them called for a certain finesse.

"I need his brain to absorb certain chemicals in preparation. Can you do that for me?" I asked, the beginning of a plan starting to take shape from the soup of the ghosts' memories. There were plenty of ways to wake him up, but I needed one that would cause minimal damage and/or alteration to his brain.

Or, as they like to put it, boring.

"It depends on the substance, but I think I can."

"Wonderful. Start with 20cc of formaldehyde."

"What?" Both Dallons present spoke in perfect synchronicity.

After about twenty minutes of spontaneous surgery planning mixed with assuring skeptics that the Tinker knew what she was doing and that, yes, the patient's cerebral cortex absolutely needed to be soaked in diluted gastric acid, Mr Baker was ready for his revival. Now all I needed was my operating room.

And Mrs Baker hadn't returned yet.

With a snarl, I turned toward the door and headed out in search of the woman. I got as far as the elevator before I found her. She was pulling on a man in white coat, doctor's arm, begging with tears on her face. There were three other nurses there, watching.

"Please! She said she could save him. You have to-"

"Listen here you chink. I had a long fucking day and I am not authorizi-rgh" The last of his sentence ended in a gurgle as he collapsed to the floor, clutching his throat. I made a show of twirling my staff before bringing the wing that I had driven into his throat up to my eyes for examination.

"Well?" I asked, the modulated voice causing the assembled onlookers to flinch. "Your doctor requires an operating theater. Get to it."

"Doctor H-" One started, taking a step toward the choking man before my staff discouraged him.

"I claimed his doctorate by right of conquest. That means I am the doctor now. Kindly have a room prepared for me stat so I can save a man from life long coma, or I will juice your marrow."

* * *

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

A gasp. Air sucked in.

Beep.

More gasps. A whoop of joy.

"Akari? Akari? Wha-Where am I?" Crying. Joyous tears of reunion.

Beep.

I stood back, leaning against a wall as normality and sanity bled back into the work. A smile formed on my lips as I watched the middle-aged woman buried herself into her husband's chest. Little sobs wracked her form and tears ran down her eyes. Yet, unlike not too long ago, it was joy that brought them. Glory Girl stood at her side with a big, goofy grin and equally teary eyes.

"You're with me, Frank... You're with me."

I patted myself on the back for a job well done as I slowly recovered from my, well, tinke fugue, as it was. It always felt odd, to deliberately pull myself out of that place, out of the ghosts' arms. It felt like pulling yourself out of the beginning of a good night's sleep.

This was confirmation. This was vindication. By my will, I made the lives of others brighter. Of course, one family was a pittance compared to the general shittyness of the Bay. Of course, waking one man from a coma is a pittance compared to what I was capable of, to what I was planning.

 _See! And wouldn't it be so much easier to do that once you're crushed them all under your heel?_

I snorted, shaking my head. That was strictly villainous thinking.

 _Forgiv hy boyz, dey are stuck in dere vayz._ I turned to the left. The large man was standing over me, an arm wrapped over my shoulders. _Vhat dis vorld need iz a protektor, not a tyrant._

A protector. I could do that.

He grinned.

I shook my head with a smile, dispelling the phantom. For all their assorted insanities and psychosis, the ghosts occasionally offered good advice. 50% assorted evil temptations, 48% bragging, and 2% good counsel.

But Red Fire was I tired! Sore too! It had to be this body. Sure, I got maybe four hours of sleep last night and I skipped lunch and dinner, but that's no excuse for for it to croak on me! I really needed a better one.

"Hey!" I squawked as Glory Girl's words cut through the fugue The sheer exuberance in her voice was always staggering, even if I'd intellectually learnt to expect it. "You're fucking AWESOME!"

I cracked a grin back at her. I would be gushing again for the seventh thousand time this night, but I was a little high on tinker.

"No! Seriously! You dropped that ass with a Hippo-staff!" A Hippo-staff? "Then you just tinker-bullshit up a happy ending for her!"

Panacea coughed, elbowing her sister aside with a glare before turning to me. She smiled, yet it was… forced? Ethereal whispers informed me of fear and apprehension hiding just beneath.

I frowned behind my mask. Jealousy I could understand, even if I could not imagine Panacea to be jealous over this. But fear? What was there to be afraid of?

"My power can't find anything wrong with Mr Baker aside from muscle atrophy. I'll come back to fix that once he puts on some weight." She nodded wearily at me. "You did a good job. "

I preened. Just a little.

"Well! This calls for a celebration!" A white clad arm fell over my shoulders, pulling me in and causing my sore muscle to protest. Panacea was quickly subjected to the same fate.

I swear, one of these days I wouldn't be able to resist cutting her open to see what her powersource was.

I glanced toward the wall clock, seeing that it was almost nine now, and shook my head. "Glory-"

"Bup bup bup!" With my lips inaccessible, Glory Girl settled for pinching my beak instead. Her other hand reached up and removed her signature crown. "Victoria. Dallon."

I blinked behind the mask, once again thankful for the mask hiding my masterful social interaction mastery. Once her intention clicked home, I tried again.

"Victoria, I-"

"Bup bup bup!" What now? "Vicky!"

The ghosts have flayed people for less than that shit eating grin.

Panacea groaned and elbowed her in the ribs. Despite her invulnerability, Gl-Victoria made an exaggerated gasp and sunk dramatically to the floor.

"Sorry for that." Panacea gave me a weak smile, but more genuine than the last. "Still, I do want to ask a few questions on what you did back there, if you have the time. It's...fascinating."

I responded with perfect grace. No fangirling involved, no sir. Anyone who suggests otherwise will be locked in a bell jar and hung out to dry.

"Just call me Amy." The healer said with a tiny smirk once my perfectly graceful response finished. "Shall we?"

Like a coiled snake, Victoria had both of us in her grips again, which didn't do my sore muscles any favors. In fact, all the enthusiasm was getting dizzying. With a shout of "Onward!", she dragged both of us off.

I managed five steps before keeling over. Only a quick flashback to this morning allowed me to lift my mask and puke down onto the floor instead of into the mask and back in my own face. I heaved, evacuating the meager contents of my stomach alongside with copious amount of blood and probably bits of my stomach. The wave of exhaustion and pain that I'd been keeping at the back of my head hit me like a sixteen wheeler.

Ah, lethal radiation poisoning, we meet again! So it was you all along!

The last batch should have lasted for another four hours at least. Did I cook it wrong? Perhaps the ingredients were past expiration. Should have checked.

"She's got enough radiation in her to cook a fucking elephant!" Pan… Amy's voice spoke in my ears. I glanced down to see her hand cupping my chin. That didn't sound right, I didn't take in that much.

Unless… The active ingredients decayed into more volatile elements after prolonged exposure. Huh, guess there's a reason for clinical trials.

"What did you do, drink liquid uranium?" She asked even as I felt my innards twisting and shifting. Her famous power at work on me. Absolutely inspiring!

"Transphasic-" Puke. Wipe. "Americum isotope."

"What? Why would you- Vicky! Tell the hospital to send a biohazard team and a lead container. I made the bile to absorb radiation but we can't be too sure!"

"Got it Ames!" The blonde departed with an audible swoosh.

"Why? Did you actually… "

"I got… caught in the moment."

"Caught in the moment?"

"Caught in the moment."

Amy groaned. The free hand came up to massage her temple even as the other maintained contact with my skin. I felt my bile rose again and doubled over to to puke again for the last time that night.

"I thought I could add one more to the number of sane capes in my life." Amy muttered as her power flowed into my body and poured strength aback into my limbs. Renewed vitality allowed me to bark a laugh at that. Sanity, right. I'm sane. Me and all of my headmates. "How are you alive right now? Nevermind that, how come you never mentioned this before?"

"I brewed a suppressant." I said with a shrug, "You were busy with the patient, so I didn't want to bother you.'

Amy blinked owlishly, her mouth moving soundlessly, then she blinked again. The cycle repeated a couple times before she burst out laughing

It was kinda concerning, to see the mousy and silent healer practically...cackling like that. I guess that she was letting out pent-up feelings, so that's good?

"Right. No." She forced out between guffaws. "Panacea's order: If you're dying of a horrible affliction, let me know. Are we clear?"

Outwardly, I nodded. It still felt rather rude though.

"Good. I think I can beat some common sense into you yet." Amy said with a satisfied nod, which then immediately turned to a frown. "That's...odd. Have your power been acting up recently, like after you eat radioactive materials?"

Something about her tone of voice suggested she disapproved of that, but I shoved that aside and focused on the question. Nothing I could think of, so I shook my head.

"Huh….what about now? Anything wrong now?"

You guys still there?

 _Why? Is this the part where we seduce the hot sisters and take over the world?_

"It's working." I answered. Amy frowned and redoubled on staring at my forehead.

"It's probably nothing. It's just…. your Potentia's weird, like you have two or something." She shrugged. "Then again, there's no pattern when it comes to it, and my power can barely make them out anyway, so yours is probably just slightly different than the rest."

Now it was my turn to purse my lips and frown. The Pollentia and the Gemma, right. The two pieces that make a cape and another mystery of the brain. I didn't give it any thought until she reminded me of it; now I really wanted to cut someone's head open. Probably mine, if mine is an anomaly.

Still, it was most likely more prudent to grab a Nazi or something to perform horrific and morally reprehensible Science upon. It's mathematic, you see. A Nazi's value is negative on the morality scale, so when you multiply that with a horrible action, ie another negative value, you ended up with a net positive!

…

Damn it, they're tempting me to villainy again.

 _Aye, it's all us._

Glory Girl returned minutes later, a man in hazmat gear pushing a large trolley following closely behind. With the younger Dallon's assistance, he quickly cleaned up my mess. He tossed a single glance over his shoulders as he departed. The heavy gear concealed his features, but I could imagine a look of long suffering behind the plexiglass.

"So! Celebratory ice cream now?"

I never actually got any that night; Amy's order was a hearty meal and bed rest. Glory did, however, take a picture of herself with a tub of butterscotch as consolation for me.

I really wanted to know if she was just naturally like that or if it took effort to get to where she was.


	11. Breakthrough 1-10-S

Now, for you guys on FF dot net, I know I said I won't post anymore, but this is a part of 1.10, delayed for quality control, so since I already posted 1.10... It's not like FF dot net compromises any font choice or some such in regard to this chapter.

Also, I want to address the concern of having to slog through pages of comment to find chapters. First: I wish, man. Second, there's always the threadmark function which will take you to all the story posts. It's hard to get this information posted without dedicating an entire chapter to essentially advertising another site, so have a chapter to go with it! If you need anything, don't hesitate to PM me, just know that it may take a while for me to notice.

As per usual, thank you to Twei, Beast_Regard and eschwartz for betaing. Apology to Samarkand for not waiting on your input.

* * *

Sophia Hess. 7th December, 2010

Powerful legs pistoned a steady, powerful rhythm. Her entire body moved to it. Her heart beat to it.

The ledge approached. Lesser men would have slowed down. They would fear the edge and turn away, they would stop.

Shadow Stalker charged headlong toward it. Steady and unafraid. She had done this before. She would do this again.

She leapt, soaring through the gap between rooftops. Her form exploded into a cloud of darkness and shot forward, trivially crossing the chasm before rematerializing in a roll. Capturing the momentum, Sophia sprung forth and kept moving.

This, she thought to herself, was the purest of freedom. A predator prowling the canopy of Brockton Bay's concrete jungle. The PRT thought to chain her down. They couldn't. Nothing could.

This was not her usual hunting ground. Her diet was primarily neo-Nazis. Still, with the collar the PRT forced upon her, it was more prudent to search for less organized prey. Fucking up bottom-feeding druggies was nowhere as satisfying as bending a skinhead's knee backward, but it was something. Beside, they had gotten uppity last night with the arson. Someone needed to remind them of their place.

A shrill, girly scream caught her attention. The probationary Ward came to a stop on a dilapidated office building and cast her eyes down.

There, down in the alley, were four disgusting example of the Bay's lowest dregs converging on a single young woman. The four twichy, spindly wastes of skin were textbook Merchant stereotypes: they looked filthy, they smelled filthy, and they probably bled sewage. The woman was more peculiar. She was dressed like a whore coming back from a night of work: a heavy jacket that was too large for her frame, and a white, ratty tube top that was the opposite, too small to cover her sizable assets. Underneath, she wore either large panties or very short shorts. It looked like jeans, so Sophia suspected the latter. However, she didn't have a whore's look. She was tall and beautiful, with luscious black hair and unblemished tanned skin. There were none of the usual signs of self-destruction.

The thugs advanced, and she took a step back, pressing herself against the dead end. With nowhere to run, she shrunk into herself. The quartet advanced, all four grinning and leering.

Sophia kept her eyes on the scene below. There was no way the woman could fight them off by herself, but that wasn't the point. She needed to fight regardless. If she dared to bite back, she would earn her right to live. If she remained as she was, scared and weak, then any effort spent would be effort wasted.

She did nothing. Worse, her whimpering only encouraged them further. One stepped up, driving a fist into her stomach, laughing as she slumped to the ground. The bottom feeders closed in, one bent down to pick her up.

The Ward expected a scream, yes, but not a hiss. The supposed victim had his wrist in her grip, apparently squeezing hard enough that he was screaming bloody murder. Before anyone could fully comprehend what was happening, she leapt, taking him up with her. The young woman twisted mid-air, three limbs somehow finding purchase on the wall behind her while the last swung upward, sending the druggie skyward.

She twisted again, face turning back to the other three even as she hung there. She didn't look right. She looked like some great, four limbed bug had taken to wearing human skin, but only had a passing familiarity with how joints and a spine were supposed to work.

 _Did she trigger?_ No. A fresh trigger should be confused and terrified. They didn't move with this alacrity and grace. It was a trap. _Feigned vulnerability to draw in overeager animals._

The airborne thug came past Sophia's view again, this time dragged by gravity's leash. He impacted the ground with a meaty thud. Sophia found her eyes drawn to his unmoving form sprawled there on the ground, limbs bent in painful angles.

He was dead.

Sophia had killed before. Three, to be exact. An ABB whoremonger whose body she crucified and left to bleed. A burglar lucky enough to have a taser on hand to discover her Achilles' heel. And a E88 thug that she was using to try out the dangle-over-ledge thing that fictional, bat-themed Aleph cape did before she slipped and dropped him in a dumpster. Turned out, a diet of primarily steak and bullshit generally leaves one too heavy for a teenager's arms to lift, no matter how athletic said teenager was.

Really, they made it look too easy. It was a spot of luck that he ended up in the trash where he belonged so she didn't have to climb down and clean up.

It wasn't easy. As much as she hated to admit it, taking a life wasn't easy. The act itself was messy and bloody, while the aftermath had her jumpy and twitchy for a while. But she managed! She killed people, then washed off the blood and acted normal the next day.

But it wasn't like this. Sophia still felt the weight on some level, both during and after the act. She tried to keep her kill count low and went for sending messages first and foremost. She put fear into the bottom feeders' hearts, and killing was a means to that end.

 _The bitch's murdering for kicks,_ Sophia realized. She could see the hunger in those eyes, within every movement. She saw mischief, anticipation, hunger, and nary a drop of humanity.

The thugs ran. The woman leapt. Her form came down on the slowest thug and pressed him to the ground as her mouth closed around the back of his neck like a lion clamping down on its prey's throat. One junkie found the courage to draw his pistol, turning around and emptying his magazine in a staccato of deafening thunders in a desperate gamble to save his comrade. Sparks exploded from her head and across her shoulders, having as much effect as a gentle breeze. She bit down with a wet squelching sound, and the thug beneath her went still. On his neck, a red pit sunk into the spine.

The rabid thing looked up, smoke wafting from where the bullets struck home, and moved. She moved like a lizard, in fact, crawling flat on all fours across the ground then twisting ninety degrees to go up a wall. Suddenly, she kicked on the red bricks, launching herself into the air and down on the shooter.

She descended, legs first and arms outstretched as if imitating a hawk's swoop. Instead of picking him up and soaring away, she simply kicked down with a sickening sound of bone snapping. The extra force carried her toward the sole survivor. Her arms closed around him like a vice, one clamping on his mouth to stifle his scream. Like a great python, she squeezed. Seconds later, the last corpse flopped to the ground, joining the other three. Four dead.

Sophia watched, equally disturbed and fascinated. She had never seen such… pure predation before. That was the term, wasn't it? Even people like Lung or Kaiser killed for a purpose, whatever that might be at the moment. Right now, from where she stood watching the cape prodding and… toying with her kills, Sophia highly doubted she understood anything higher than simple want.

Powers could fuck with people's heads. This looked like one of the extreme cases.

Suddenly, the woman darted toward the manhole cover and pried the lid open before grabbing the nearest corpse to toss into the darkness. Was she disposing of the bodies? Hoarding them?

 _So little blood,_ Sophia noted as she observed the other cape dragging the bodies away. Even the one she bitten didn't bleed as much as commin sense would dictate. From where Sophia stood, it looked like she had somehow destroyed his spine with her own teeth while avoiding cutting arteries. _Actual animals do that, minimalizing bloodshed to avoid scavengers and larger carnivores._

When the third corpse disappeared into the sewer, the cape didn't come back for the fourth. Instead, she stood stock-still, unmoving like a statue. Was she coming to her senses? A berserk power?

Then she twisted. Her spine bent in a way that make Sophia's own ache just from the sight. Golden eyes fell on her, gleaming in the alley's shadow. The cape's lips pulled back, revealing an exhibition of gleaming knives before she roared, giving the vigilante a great view of her shark-like mouth.

"Fuck!" Sophia swore, body shifting to her shadow state as she descended toward the other cape. Her sudden movement seemed to disorient the rabid parahuman enough for Sophia to form behind her and bring her crossbow to bear. Her hunting crossbow, loaded with a broadhead bolt, not the tiny pistol thing the PRT forced her to use.

She could probably take the wild woman with phased bolts, but it definitely wouldn't be an easy fight. So, instead of letting her bolt loose, the Ward kept her eyes trained and her fingers ready. The feral beast turned around, keeping her own eyes on the Ward's as they circled each other. Hunter and beast, each waiting for the other to make the move.

"You gonna fight me?" Sophia called out.

That seemed to catch the animalistic cape off guard. She sat back on her haunches and shook her head fast enough to send her long hair flying like a headbanger. When she decided that her disagreement was properly conveyed, she opened her mouth, barely visible now that her hair had completely covered her head.

Sophia expected… well, human sounds? A snarl? Something that belonged beneath God's green, fucked up Earth? She didn't expect a sound like a tractor with its tread jammed by tormented puppies. Still, Sophia held her ground, even with goosebumps rising slowly.

The feral lady let out a huff before reaching out with one hand to dig into the asphalt beneath her feet. Her eyes squinted and brow furrowed in absolute concentration as she traced letters into the ground.

Sophia squinted, trying to read the words without moving an inch closer. At least the rabid thing had the courtesy to write it upside down for her. _I... good... girl…_

"You don't look like one," Sophia commented, weapon still held steady in her palms.

The feral cape reeled, leaping to her legs and bringing both arms across her chest to form an X, and repeated the same enthusiastic head-shaking again, to much similar effect. The dark-skinned girl barely had a second to comprehend this cartoonish sight before the strange woman twisted around, her eyes falling on the remaining discarded corpse. She pounced on it, crawling over the broken body and picking it up with her mouth before turning back to Sophia with a dead Merchant dangling between her teeth.

Sophia blinked as she deposited the corpse at her feet before starting to carve at the ground with her fingers again.

 _M-e-r-t-c…_ "Yes, he's Merchant. I know."

The woman's lips pulled back in a massive grin, and Sophia felt a chill run down her back at the clear view she had of her dental: a mouthful of gleaming, ivory knives. With disturbing glee, she twisted the corpse's neck, turning its head the wrong way around, before tossing it aside and tapping on the 'good girl' scrawled into the ground again.

The vigilante stared, mouth moving silently behind her mask for a moment before she gave up entirely.

"The fucking PRT is definitely not gonna buy that shit."

The rabid cape let out a little sad whimper, which didn't thankfully didn't sound like the wailing of damned souls, and dropped to her ass again. She scratched at her cheek, face scrunched in deep thought. Some might even call the sight adorable, if they had the luck of not witnessing the past minutes or so.

Suddenly, she snapped a finger, her expression brightening, and Sophia could just imagine the lightbulb turning on above her head with a ding. She picked up the broken corpse around, this time using her arms, and offered it to Sophia with a big, bright smile.

The Ward did nothing, said nothing, thought nothing. Her grip on the crossbow relaxed. She watched as the woman's face turned from excitement to confusion then to recognition. The insane woman suddenly pounded the pavement with her fist, causing Sophia to jump back, steadying her crossbow as she did.

But instead of pouncing, the feral girl took a sharp-looking piece of asphalt off the ground and brought it to the corpse's face to write a 'to PRT' in bleeding lines encircled within a crimson heart.

"I don't think the PRT is going to take a brutalized body as a bribe."

Her face fell to disappointment for a second before she shrugged, infuriating, disturbing chipperness filling her once more as she scratched out 'PRT' and wrote 'SS' over it before offering the horrific bleeding mess to Sophia.

"I don't fucking want a brutalized body as anything!" Even ignoring the slight undertone of psychopathy and the serial killer vibe, it was just… tacky! If you were going to carve names into corpses with a piece of asphalt, you could at least do it for a better reason than addressing a present!

The other cape's face fell. Yellow eyes widened and drooped. Her lips pouted while pathetic, puppy-like whimperings emerged from the back of her throat. She shrunk under Sophia's eyes, using her kill as a shield to hide herself, occasionally peeking her quivering eyes out to steal a glance.

 _Great! It's like I kicked a fucking puppy! A murderous, sadistic shark-puppy. Fuck it._ "I. Don't. Want. A. Corpse."

The...thing dropped her head, letting her black hair cover her entire face. Suddenly, she huffed and turned away, posessively hugging the corpse/bribe/present as she did. She stalked toward the open manhole. Stopping at the edge, she turned around to blow a raspberry at Sophia before leaping down into the darkness, carrying the last body with her.

Sophia stood unmoving, alone in a dark alley with only her thoughts for company.

 _Only in Brockton fucking Bay._


End file.
